Vicodin no Jutsu II
by Omega19x
Summary: Sequel. After Orochimaru's escape, special jonin House and his cell return with two more extreme cases - a young genin in a mysterious coma and the critically ill Akatsuki who, unbeknownst to them, caused it. Naruto/House M.D. Crossover. COMPLETE.
1. Aftermath

[Insert Disclaimer Here: I own nothing from the worlds of House or Naruto. I am, however, the proud owner an IV pole. It makes a great conversation starter and an even more amazing coat rack.]

. . .

"House!" Special jonin James Wilson screamed at the top of his lungs. "House, get out here!"

Wilson, by nature, was a gentle and. above all else, patient man. However, he could be quite a force to reckon with when that patience has run out. Before he could even reach his office that morning, he was greeted by two entire ANBU squads, at least two dozen frightened patients and more than two million ryo in damages. That, of course, only meant one thing – his friend and fellow medical shinobi was up to more than his usual tricks.

"House!" he stormed up down the stairs and around the corner. The door to House's office swung open in a near-fatal blow, crashing into the glass on the other side. "House, you have some serious explaining to…"

Wilson's tirade fell flat when he suddenly realized he was talking to an empty desk. The lights in House's office were off. The remains of a complicated sealing ritual were still strewn about the floor, but House and his cell weren't there. Wilson, though, wasn't going to be alone for long.

"Oh, thank goodness you're here. Saves me the trouble of looking all over for you."

Wilson spun around to find special jonin Gregory House standing directly behind him. The man smirked, and Wilson just rolled his eyes.

"I assume you had at least something to do with the mass chaos I walked into up on the eighth floor?" he spat, gesturing frantically with his hands. "The topless Cuddy shadow clone, that's a prank. Ninja Centerfold in the OR shower, that's a prank. Hiring assassins and telling them Orochimaru, of all people, is hiding out in oncology…"

"Can't talk. New mission." House hummed as he pushed Wilson aside with his cane, limping around his desk. He sorted through the small pile of folders on his desk, tossing the important ones into a nearby knapsack. "Cuddy's expecting me to rendezvous with the rest of my team as soon as possible."

"What, now? Where?"

"Taknzaku Town." House answered immediately. "Chase and Foreman might already be there. Cameron left a few minutes ago with more supplies. You and I will be leaving in a few minutes."

"Hang on just a minute!" Wilson interrupted. "Why do you need me to go with you to Tanzaku Town?"

"I don't."

"But… you just said…"

"We," House made heavy emphasis on that part, "are not going to Tanzaku Town. We're going to Rice Country. Or should I say, the country formerly known as Rice Country."

"The Land of Sound?"

"Bingo."

"House, that's in the opposite direction!"

"I know." House replied quickly. "And it'll probably take me a couple days to get there. I need you nearby so I don't get too bored."

Wilson's jaw dropped.

"Bored… Because you won't have anyone else's private office to invade or patients to terrorize?" Wilson spat again, pacing slightly. "It's not funny! I mean, seriously… Orochimaru? House, do you even think before you act sometimes?"

Wilson spun back around, freezing as he finally House eye to eye. The smirk was gone, replaced with a cold, serious stare that suddenly made Wilson question his entire interpretation of that morning's events.

"Orochimaru isn't… hiding somewhere in the hospital, right?" Wilson squeaked in a faint whisper.

"Of course not." House scoffed, watching relief pour over his friend's face. "I helped him escape through a third floor window about an hour ago."

"Oh good… you WHAT?"

"Which is precisely why I need to go make a house call." House continued packing his bag, not even giving Wilson's reaction a second thought. "Though, I suppose when I do them, they're just calls. You know, the name and everything."

Wilson, meanwhile, just stood there – frozen and stunned as the entire conversation finally fell into place. House was on his way to Otogakure to pay a visit to the most feared S-class criminal in the world… and he wanted – no, he expected - company. By the time Wilson managed to find his voice again, House was already halfway out the door.

"House, I am not going to Otogakure." He announced with a voice that was as much timid as it was brave.

"Yes, you are." House replied, as though it were simply a matter of fact.

"No, I'm not." Wilson repeated. "First of all, that's treason. Second, Cuddy would tear us apart if she found out. And third… it's not like you can force me."

"First of all, I've technically been a traitor for the last twenty-four hours. Second, Cuddy already knows. She was the one who called for the ANBU, after all. And third, I don't have to. The minute Cuddy realizes I'm not bound for Tanzaku Town, something which, if it hasn't happened yet, should happen within the next few hours, she's going to track you down and send you after me. And you can't say no to her quite so easily."

"What? Why me?"

"Wilson!" he answered in his best Cuddy impersonation. "Go after House. Bring him back before he gets himself killed. I don't know… pretend to be the conscience he doesn't have. He listens to you…"

Wilson grumbled under his breath.

"Fine…" he sighed. He felt a headache coming on, and it was shaped remarkably like Gregory House. "You win… But I hope you know what you're doing…"

House glanced over his shoulder, his hard gaze softening for a moment.

"So do I."


	2. The Next Mission

The midday sun was at its peak by the time Dr. Alison Cameron reached the outskirts of Tanzaku Town. The walls of the city were in ruin, as were many of its buildings. It was oddly fitting, she thought to herself for a moment, as she was starting to feel very much the same way.

As she ran from Yugakure, she raced through the previous day's events over and over again.

She was the first, House's suspicions not withstanding, to realize the true identity of their mysterious patient. She was also the first to confront him, and paid quite a high price for it. The curse mark on her left shoulder could easily end her career if she wasn't careful. Just as easily, it could also end her life. Perhaps that was why she chose to stay behind and help House. All things considered, she really didn't have anything to lose. Orochimaru, however, certainly did.

With the seal in place, she could keep her chakra in check. She could recover. Their patient's prognosis, however, wasn't as favorable. The chances of graft rejection were high. The chances of succumbing to an opportunistic infection were even higher. There was a good chance that she risked everything – her life, her career, her allegiance and her better judgment - for absolutely nothing.

But those are the kind of odds you play with when you work for special jonin House. In the end, the case was solved, Cameron kept telling herself, and perhaps it really had put House one step closer to healing his own cursed leg. That's all that really mattered. Everything else would work itself out in the end. It always did.

Upon entering the city, it didn't take long to find the others. There was a makeshift clinic set up by the east wall, and a swarm of people had already crowded around it. Even though they were being assisted by several of town medics, doctors Robert Chase and Eric Foreman certainly had their hands full.

Foreman spotted her first.

"I thought you were taking leave." He exclaimed.

"I was." She replied with an ambiguous smile. "But then I thought you might need some help."

"That's an understatement." Chase replied, not even glancing up from the young child he was examining. "Doctor/patient ratio is now only about forty to one. Makes a big difference."

She shrugged off his sarcasm.

"Symptoms?" Cameron asked, slinging her pack off her shoulder as she studied the scene.

"High fever, abdominal pain and diarrhea. Common across everyone here." Chase answered with a long sigh. "We've been so busy trying to manage the symptoms, we haven't had any luck isolating the toxin."

"And preliminary reports suggest the giant snake's venom was primarily neurotoxic." Foreman added. "Given that we aren't dealing with hundreds of cases of heart failure, we can safely assume the snake wasn't the cause."

"I'd start with the water supply, if I were you."

"A mass epidemic of gastroenteritis?" Chase blinked.

Cameron nodded. Foreman thought for a moment, and then corroborated the diagnosis.

"Fever does point toward infection." He added. "And the symptoms fit. The town reservoir is fed from a river just north of here. Right where the snake was first spotted."

"That's what House thought too."

Foreman and Chase shared an uneasy look as their cell leader's name was brought up for the first time. The last time they saw House, he was putting their necks on the line to save an S-class criminal. The fact that he didn't arrive with Cameron had not gone unnoticed either.

"But he has a point." Cameron insisted. "If this were the result of the snake's poison, they'd be too busy burying the dead to worry about the living. Once you rule out the life threatening, you're left with something relatively benign. A bad case of food poisoning. Plain and simple."

She pulled a variety of bottles from her pack.

"The infection may run its course on its own, but just in case… here." She tossed one to Foreman and the other to Chase. "Fluoroquinolones for the adults. Cephalosporins for the children, treat for dehydration with intravenous fluids where necessary."

"Yes, ma'am." Foreman nodded and grinned.

"We'll finish up here." Chase suggested. "Why don't you find the village advisors and see about setting up a filtration system to get the decontamination process underway. Stop any new people from getting sick."

Cameron nodded, but as she stood up, a large explosion nearly knocked her over again.

"…What was that?"


	3. A Comatose Genin

Cameron was answered by dead silence, immediately followed by panic. With one attack still fresh in their minds, patients scattered to the back of the tent as quickly as they could. The doctors, meanwhile, tried to push their way to the front. The source of the explosion wasn't hard to find. Smoke billowed from the side of a nearby inn where a wall had completely collapsed. Two figures dashed across an adjacent rooftop, but in another instant, they were gone.

"That blast used a lot of chakra…" Chase whispered.

"That's no normal fire either." Foreman pointed. "Look at it… it's black!"

"Could be a fire release jutsu, but I've never seen anything like it…" Chase pondered. "Cameron, you saw a lot of those techniques when you were living in Fire Country right?"

"I saw plenty of fire jutsu." Cameron whispered, unconsciously rubbing her curse mark. "But never one quite like that. There's no mistaking what started it, though. While we were all down here, there was a battle of some kind going on up there."

"Come on." Foreman motioned them forward. "There may be injured people up there."

"Right."

Foreman raced up the stairs with Chase and Cameron right on his heels. As he slid the last screen back, he realized just how right he was. There were several shinobi still inside, all from Konohagakure. But only one appeared to be injured.

"It's all right, we're doctors!" Chase shouted as the youngest of the group started jumped into an eager fighting stance.

"We were treating the townspeople outside. We heard the explosion." Cameron added. "Is everyone all right?"

"Does everyone look all right, lady?" the same young ninja shouted with clenched fists. As he growled, Cameron could have sworn she saw his blue eyes flash red.

"Calm down, Naruto." Jiraiya put his hand on the boy's shoulder. He turned back to the three doctors. "You'll have to excuse him. He has a tendency to look before he leaps."

"I do not!"

"In fact, he was the intended target of the recent attack. But as you can see, someone else decided to leap first this time."

All eyes fell on the young boy slumped against the wall, and Foreman bent down to examine him more closely.

"Broken wrist. Fractured ribs… Physical injuries are pretty minimal."

"It's not the physical injuries that we're worried about." Jiraiya quickly added.

Chase knelt down beside Foreman, pulling out a small flashlight. He lifted the boy's eyelids, shining the light in one eye, and then the other.

"Pupils are as non-responsive as he is."

"And they're both dilated. It's not a focal legion." Cameron added, kneeling down as well. She bit her lip. Something was very wrong. "We could be looking at extensive midbrain injuries."

"Or brain death."

"Not like either makes sense…" Cameron mumbled under her breath. There wasn't any evidence of head trauma. The boy's injuries weren't severe enough to warrant brain damage. "Central herniation? Toxic reaction?"

"What the hell happened here?"

Naruto glared toward his teacher in frustration, and Jiraiya let out a long sigh.

"I was trying to let Sasuke fight his own fight…" he answered slowly. "But I guess I should have stepped in much sooner."

"You think, pervy sage?" Naruto growled, bearing his teeth. "It's not like anything was happening! He just threw him into the wall and held him there. He wasn't even choking him. Just looking at him! Even I could have taken…"

"Quiet, Naruto." Jiraiya cut him off sharply. "No, you couldn't. You wouldn't stand a chance against a genjutsu like that. Trust me."

"Jiraiya's right, Naruto." Gai stepped forward. "Kakashi met up with those particular Akatsuki not that long ago, and he was caught in the same trap. When I left the village, he was still in a coma. The medical shinobi are doing everything they can, but right now they're not sure when, or even if, he'll wake up."

"Kakashi… Kakashi-sensei?"

Gai solemnly nodded. Naruto, however, felt no such sympathy. Chakra rolled around clenched fists as he turned back to Jiraiya.

"And you let Sasuke take him on alone? What were you thinking?"

"It was his fight, Naruto." Jiraiya wrapped his hand around Naruto's jacket and pulled him closer. Hot breath stung his cheeks as Jiraiya answered in sharp, intense bursts. "Sasuke swore vengeance against his older brother the night his entire family was slaughtered. He's been training for this day, preparing for this fight with every ounce of his strength."

When Naruto stopped struggling, Jiraiya let him go.

"He just wasn't strong enough yet."

"His vitals are still strong." Chase replied. "At least for now. Whatever this genjutsu did, it stopped short of affecting basic life functions."

"We don't know for how long, though." Cameron unconsciously rubbed her shoulder again. She felt a pang of regret watching the boy's chest rise and fall so steadily. "We should move quickly. Take him back to Yugakure while he's still stable. If we can determine how the genjutsu caused the coma, we might be able to reverse the damage."

Gai nodded and carefully lifted the unconscious Sasuke into his arms.

"I'll go with you."

"Me too." Naruto added, but Jiraiya held him back.

"Not so fast. We still have a mission to complete in case you've forgotten."

"But…" Naruto protested.

Jiraiya stopped him yet again.

"Trust me, he's in good hands. In my travels, I've heard plenty of stories about the medical shinobi that call Yugakure home. There's a special jonin there who might even rival Tsunade. Not that I'd ever say that to her face, though!" Jiraiya managed a light chuckle, but stopped when he realized he was laughing alone. "The point is, there's nothing more you can do for Sasuke right now. So we need to stay focused on what we came here to do. And that's finding Tsunade. Understand?"

Naruto nodded begrudgingly.

"We'll take good care of him." Foreman insisted. "We promise."

"You'd better." Naruto growled softly. He and Jiraiya turned away, listening to the footsteps get softer as the large group hurried out of the hall. They leapt onto the ground below, making their way toward the town gates.

"I'll finish up here and catch up with you." Cameron added. The other doctors nodded as they split up.

"In the meantime," Foreman glanced over at Gai. "I need you to tell us all you can about that genjutsu."

"Of course. Of course." He replied. "It's called Tsukuyomi..."


	4. The Ones That Got Away

As one group left Tanzaku Town, another had a head start. Forced to retreat rather than continue the fight, shinobi criminals Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki were trying to put as much space between them and the town as possible.

Itachi, however, had already started to lag behind.

"Having second thoughts?" Kisame called back, glancing over his shoulder with a menacing grin. "We can always go back and finish the job if you like."

Kisame laughed, but Itachi didn't rebuke him. Instead, he stumbled, his pace slowing even more while he regained his footing.

"Oh, I get it." Kisame continued. He held back for a half second, letting Itachi catch up again. "You know, you really shouldn't be using those eyes so many times in one day. You can keep telling me those branches aren't getting blurry, but it's times like this when…"

"No…" Itachi winced. His hand clutched his chest and he stumbled again. "It's… it's not my eyes..."

This time, Kisame outright stopped. He spun around just in time to see his partner fall beneath the trees.

"Itachi?" Kisame slipped through the branches. His partner was already on the ground. "Itachi! Are you all right?"

Itachi managed to shake his head as he coughed. He tried to speak, but couldn't find enough breath to get a word in edgewise. Kisame crouched next to him, hitting him squarely several times on the back.

"Itachi?"

The coughing continued, and Kisame could only watch as blood shot between Itachi's fingers. He pulled a shaking hand away from his mouth. His eyes were having difficulty focusing on it, but he didn't need to see clearly to realize what it was covered in. He coughed again, blood dribbling freely down his chin.

A branch snapped close by, and Kisame jerked.

"Itachi. Come on." He whispered harshly, grabbing his partner by the shoulders. "Someone's coming. We can't stay here."

Itachi nodded, all the while spitting up another mouthful of blood. He tried to get up, but a series of pained gasps sent him curling in on himself.

"Kisame… can't breathe…"

"Come on!" Kisame shouted as he tried to hoist his partner to his feet. They could both hear the footsteps clearly now.

Despite relishing in the thrill of battle, this was no time for a fight, and Kisame knew it. Itachi couldn't defend himself and would surely die trying. Kisame had no doubt in his own abilities, but getting his partner back to base or to a medic, any medic, was a far higher priority.

"Itachi, we have to move!" Kisame swung Itachi's arm over his neck. "If we backtrack, we're dead meat. But the nearest village isn't that far away."

Itachi tried to nod between labored gasps, but it was tainted with the realization he probably wouldn't make it that long or that far. He slumped as he choked on another mouthful of blood, and Kisame lost his grip.

"Itachi!"

Kisame froze. The footsteps were coming closer, so close that they could even hear voices…

"And so she said – That's not my sister. That's my shadow clone."

A pair of traveling shinobi broke through the trees and stepped into the clearing. Faced with no other options, Kisame drew his weapon. He hesitated between keeping a protective stance over his partner and simply charging in for the kill. Fortunately, it only took a moment of hesitation for House and Wilson to realize exactly what they'd walked into.

No one spoke, making Itachi's agonizing coughing spell seem that much louder. House picked up on it immediately. He took a couple of steps forward and the tip of Kisame's samheda met with his eyes.

"House…" Wilson grabbed for his friend's vest, and almost missed. "Those are Akatsuki..."

House didn't reply. Instead, he took another step closer. Kisame followed.

"House, they're going to kill us if we keep going that way!" He whispered through clenched teeth.

"Not if one of them dies first." House shrugged it off, and limped closer. He drew no additional weapons, but kept a tight grip on his cane. "Put that away. We're not here for a fight. We're medical shinobi."

Kisame scoffed.

"And just why should I trust the likes of you?"

"The fact that massive hemotypsis, without immediate treatment carries at least a 75 percent mortality rate." He answered without fear or hesitation. "Combined with the fact that if you don't, your buddy has an almost 100 percent chance of ending the day as a statistic."

After an uneasy pause, Kisame put away his weapon, letting the special jonin through.

"What the hell is wrong with him?"

"I don't know…" House replied, deep in thought. "… Yet."


	5. Speculation

"I'm back." Dr. Cameron announced quietly as she slid the door open. "How is he?"

A quick glance at the other doctors' faces told her everything that she needed to know. The boy was still unresponsive and they were still at a loss as to why.

Cameron let out a long sigh. She hated to admit it, but the patient looked so peaceful compared to most that reached their care. It was like he was merely asleep. Short black hair ruffled against the pillow. His thin chest rose and fell steadily. Heart rate was a little fast, but stable, and he didn't show any outward signs of pain.

A respirator was sitting by the bed, but Sasuke wasn't hooked up to it. For now, his vitals were holding steady with a minimal amount of supplemental oxygen. But everyone in the room, including the jonin that came in with him, knew that could change in a matter of moments.

"We went ahead and gave him 25g of glucose, 2 mg of Naloxone and 100 mg of Thiamine." Chase finally responded. "All with no improvement. The treatment elicited a slight drop in blood pressure, but nothing to be concerned about. "

"Meaning the coma is not hypoglycemic, not the result of overdose and not caused by something as easily reversible as Wernicke's Encephalopathy… which we already knew." Foreman groaned. "The coma is a direct result of the jutsu."

"Which, unfortunately, we still don't know much about…"

They glanced over at Gai, and he approached the bedside with little caution.

"Unfortunately, the actual workings of the jutsu were a carefully guarded secret among the Uchiha clan." He admitted. "It's an advanced technique, one that very few Uchiha were apparently capable of performing. All I know for certain is that it takes direct eye contact from a special kind of activated sharingan. And from what I've observed, a lot of chakra."

"Wait… just a moment. You said, 'were?" Chase hesitantly interrupted.

"The Uchiha are all but extinct. Almost all of them were wiped out in a single night about five years ago. By one of their own clansmen, no less." Gai replied. "And their secrets died with them. Their strongholds in the village were burned to the ground. As far as I know, nothing remained."

"But not all of them died. So, would another Uchiha know how to counter this?"

"I don't know." Gai crossed his arms. "But good luck finding one to answer your questions. There are only two left and one of them is lying in that bed. The other one, his older brother…

"Had to have been the person who did this to him…" Cameron mumbled. The thought was downright chilling; especially considering that was probably the same Uchiha that massacred his entire clan.

"Bingo." Gai answered with a nervous grin.

"Which just means we have to figure it out for ourselves." Foreman insisted. "You said the jutsu requires eye contact, right?"

Gai nodded.

"Then the way I see it, it could follow one of two paths." He continued. Either it's sympathetic… from the eye through the carotid artery up the lateral spinal cord to lateral brainstem and into the hypothalamus. Or it's parasympathetic, from the eye through the third nerve, through the Edinger Westphal nucleus in the midbrain. And it likely caused a brain injury somewhere along the way."

"But which one?" Chase asked. "There could be lesions on either path. Or the jutsu could have disrupted the nervous system on both fronts."

"But there would be little difference as to where the lesion would be…" Cameron added.

Foreman would have agreed, but the crash of the sliding door beat him to it.

"And speaking about final location, fancy finding all you little lesions here." Dr. House smirked as he strode into the room. There was a folder in his hand and a look of eager suspense written all over his face.

"We could say the same to you." Foreman sneered cautiously.

"Shouldn't you be in Tanzaku Town?"

"Shouldn't you be playing nursemaid to a snake right about now?" Chase added spitefully.

"We finished there already." Cameron answered for her teammates, diffusing the tension a little. "And on the way back, we came across another case. Dare I say, it's one I think you'd appreciate? Thirteen-year-old male shino…"

"What a coincidence." House struck Cameron in the chest with his cane as he tossed the folder to Foreman. "So did I."

A nervous moment of silence followed as House studied the unconscious boy in the bed and pondered the one just down the hall. He popped two vicodin into his mouth and smiled.

"This must be our lucky day."


	6. Differentials

Two folders sat open on the table in front of special jonin House and his team. As much as House agreed that a thirteen-year-old genin rendered comatose by a rare jutsu was fascinating beyond belief, the rest of the team had to admit that the patient who wasn't stable took precedence over the one who, despite being unconscious, miraculously was.

"Patient is an eighteen-year-old male shinobi presenting with massive hemoptysis and respiratory failure. Complete blood count reveals leukocytosis and anemia. Wilson's overseeing a brochoscopy as we speak."

"Anemia could just be a result of blood loss. But elevated white blood cell count points to infection. Probably a myobacterial infection or tuberculosis." Chase suggested.

"Sputum culture and blood tests were negative for both."

"Doesn't rule out all infections. Depending on mission location, he could have picked up almost anything. We should start him on broad-spectrum antibiotics. Maybe we'll get lucky."

"The problem might not be an infection at all." Cameron interrupted. "It could be a structural abnormality of the lungs."

"Or it might be a tumor. Hemoptysis could easily be the result of advanced lung cancer. So could the anemia."

"Bronchiectasis could also account for the anemia and the bleeding." Cameron continued. "Plus, excessive mucous production could lead to increased susceptibility to infection. It would explain why his white blood cell count is elevated – he could have contracted another infection without even being aware of it yet."

House nodded.

"Bronchiectasis fits. Cameron and Chase, get a chest CT to confirm as soon as the bleeding is under control." House instructed. "And start him on broad spectrum antibiotics just in case."

"What about me?" Foreman asked.

"You and I get to tend to coma-boy." House replied, switching his serious demeanor for a haphazard grin. "Before we get a good look at the kind of damage that tsukuyomi jutsu is capable of causing, let's see how much brain function is actually left. Get an EEG set up."

House cracked his knuckles as he stood up.

"Oh, and just so you can't say I'm a heartless bastard who didn't warn you this time," he added, entirely as an afterthought. "My patient and his partner are rogue shinobi, so they aren't exactly very trusting. You might want to be on your guard."

Chase and Cameron, who were already at the door, both froze. They turned their heads slowly toward House.

"Oh wait, you're ninja. You're always supposed to be on your guard. Silly me. Forgot who I was talking to for a second."

"House…" Chase growled under his breath. "Who are we treating this time?"

"You'll see. And when you do," House called out. "You might want to think about keeping it our little secret."

They exchanged nervously irritated glances as they walked out the door.

"You'll see?' What exactly does he mean by 'you'll see?" Chase whispered, glancing back over his shoulder. He almost expected another snide comment from his cell leader, but House and Foreman had already turned the other corner.

"It means whatever he wants it to mean." Cameron whispered back. "Either he's messing with us after everything that happened in the last couple days or he really did manage to bring back another missing-nin."

"Last time…" Chase began, but Cameron cut him off.

"Last time, even House didn't know who we were treating." her voice got even softer as they reached the stairs. "At least not right away. The fact that House already knows this patient is a rogue shinobi is a good thing."

"Right. At least we know we're walking into a trap."

"It means we aren't being intentionally deceived." Cameron insisted, and given recent events, her answer carried far more weight than usual. "Believe me when I say it's the lesser of two evils."

They turned the corner, and immediately came to a stop. The immense surge of chakra was impossible to ignore, and its source, even more so. The unusual man sat in the farthest corner. He was crouched over, his face buried in his fists as though he were trying to purposefully avoid drawing unnecessary attention to himself. His very presence, however, did just that. The pattern in his cloak was unmistakable. He was a member of the criminal organization, Akatsuki, making him a very dangerous man.

"Care to rethink that belief?" Chase whispered as he pushed through the operating room doors.

Cameron didn't answer. But even after the doors closed behind them, Chase knew she could feel a pair of tiny white eyes drilling through her back.


	7. Anything But Routine

"Thank goodness." Wilson immediately spat, rushing toward Cameron and Chase as soon as they opened the door. A cascade of alarms met with scurrying footsteps and shouting voices from the squad of genin overseeing a procedure that was now anything but routine.

"I need another unit of AB blood over here!"

"Blood pressure is dropping. He's not responding to the medication…"

Chase nodded as Cameron sprinted toward the table.

Upon first glance, the patient was nothing like the man waiting outside the doors. Whereas his partner was broad-shouldered and physically imposing, this man looked surprisingly weak for an S-class criminal. His current condition only added to that impression. Even under general anesthesia, he looked as if he were drowning. Technically, he was.

The chunin in command stepped aside as Cameron took the scope.

"Report?"

"We're having trouble getting the bleeding under control." The other man answered quickly. He was losing his composure almost as fast as he was losing his patient. His hands were shaking and his palms were sweaty.

"Can you pinpoint where it's coming from?" Chase asked, as much to Cameron as to the other team.

"It's not the bronchial tubes." She answered, maneuvering the bronchoscope further into the damaged lungs.

"No, it's the smaller vessels in the lungs that are hemorrhaging." The chunin replied, turning to the pair of genin assistants with a sharp grunt. "More suction. Keep that chakra flowing!"

"Then we were wrong about bronchiectasis."

"And total alveolar volume is usually large enough to handle significant amounts of blood. For the bleeding to be this massive, there's something else going on here." Cameron reasoned. "I need 500 mg of methylprednisolone!"

"Doctors, I'm losing him…"

"Now!" Chase barked, taking the scope from Cameron. He adjusted the lens, trying to peer through the constant current of blood. "Damn, we don't have time to wait for the drugs to kick in… I'm going to try and physically stop it."

"I already tried to use a topical coagulant to control the hemotypsis, but the continuous blood flow was flushing away the fibrin glue before a clot could even form!"

"Fresh frozen plasma to normalize coagulation?'

"Didn't work."

"Epinephrine solution?"

"Nothing's working!"

"Blood pressure is still dropping."

"He's tachycardic." The alarms grew louder, even as Cameron added the corticosteroid to the I.V. line. "I'm trying to bring it back into rhythm, but he's going into shock!"

"We need more time!"

"We don't have any more time!"

"Then we'll have to make some!" Chase shouted, "Get me 500 mL of saline solution, and dissolve into that fifty units of recombinant activated factor VIIa."

"What?" the team leader was suddenly perplexed. The request was unusual, even from someone in House's cell.

"The extensive pulmonary inflammation means that there's an abundance of tissue factor. Recombinant activated factor VIIa should immediately drive coagulation."

"But we already administered 120 units intravenously. And that had no hemostatic effect whatsoever!"

"It doesn't matter!" He countered quickly, motioning for Cameron to start setting up for the first 50 mL push. A pair of genin scrambled as they prepared the fluids.

"Are you absolutely insane? Flooding his lungs with liquid will kill him!"

"They're already flooded." Cameron shouted, snatching the saline from the genin and pushing him aside. "We have to do something. If not, he'll be dead in minutes!"

The supervising team glanced from the patient to the surrounding monitors and the chunin in charge bowed his head. They were losing him, and he was out of suggestions.

"It'll work." Chase insisted one more time. Whether he was trying to convince the others or convince himself, no one was really sure anymore. "…It has to work."


	8. Tension

Special jonin House, meanwhile, was about as far away from the chaos as he could get. His younger patient was surprisingly still stable. If the machines surrounding Sasuke made any noise at all, it was slow, deliberate and predictable. Even Might Gai, a man known for ostentatious outbursts, was almost silent as he watched Foreman painstakingly apply each electrode.

House ignored Foreman in favor of mentally scrutinizing the other jonin. Preparing for the electroencephalogram was already a time-consuming process, but to Gai, it seemed to stretch on for an eternity.

The first two electrodes were taped just behind Sasuke's ears. The next was placed on his cheekbone, just below his left eye, followed by another on the bony area between his right eye socket and temple. The rest still had to be added, one by one, all over his scalp.

Gai's distant, unfocused stare betrayed his thoughts. He wasn't worried about the boy as much as he was about the jutsu's other victim, who was probably laying comatose somewhere in a Konohagakure medical facility. His posture too, gave away his intentions. It was unnaturally relaxed. He was conserving his strength, so that once the diagnosis was made and treatment begun, he could make the return trip in a fraction of the time.

House would have probably started calculating how much time it would actually take, had the door not slid open with a burst of chakra. The sudden noise jolted Gai from his thoughts, and House from continuing to stave off his curiosity.

"We were wrong about the bronchiectasis." Chase announced in a single breath.

If the urgency in his voice wasn't clear enough, his tousled appearance was. A surgical mask was still hanging around his neck, and he had only bothered to discard about half of his bloody clothes on the way from the operating rooms to the neurology labs.

"We were able to get the hemoptysis under control." He continued from the edge of the doorway. "But when I had the scope, I didn't see any ulceration or scarring in the bronchial walls. The source of the bleeding was much further in and the damage was ridiculously extensive."

"Which could have been the result of persistent microbial infections or frequent pneumonia." Foreman volunteered.

"No. The damage was in the smaller vessels. It couldn't have been anything other than diffuse alveolar hemorrhage."

House rubbed his chin. They both knew massive hemoptysis couldn't be the only symptom. But until they had more information, making a solid diagnosis was a futile attempt. For now, it was all they had to go on.

"Get a complete blood workup and do a urinalysis to rule out glomerulonephritis and the other pulmonary-renal syndromes."

"Right." Chase replied, and he was out the door as quickly as he arrived.

"Ah! Now there goes the power of youth!"

Guy flashed a grin, and House rolled his eyes. Foreman just shrugged. It was an awkward way to break the tension, but he had to admit – it did sort of work. House, of course, had plenty of other ways to fill the silence.

"Are you almost done with those?" he whined as he limped back to rest of the equipment.

"Sorry. It's taking longer than I thought." Foreman sighed. "His hair is oily. It has some kind of styling product in it, and that's making it difficult for the gel to stick."

"Then stop wasting time and go fetch some shampoo…" House groaned as tapped his cane gently over Foreman's bald head. "You _do_ know what that is, right?"


	9. Concern

Cameron let out a sigh of relief as she entered the intensive are unit. It was a close call, one that was far closer than either she or Chase would have liked to admit. But they'd managed to stop the bleeding. For now, their patient was tenuously stable.

His condition, however, was still critical.

The anesthesia had yet to wear off, and he was still hooked to the ventilator. Cameron watched his chest rise and fall at predetermined intervals, and wondered how extensive the damage really was. It wasn't long, though, before a scratchy voice shook her from her thoughts.

"Is he going to be all right?"

She wasn't as shocked by the question as much as she was by how softly it was asked. Concern wasn't a trait she often assigned to S-rank criminals, especially ones as infamous as the Akatsuki. She glanced over her shoulder to find the other man still waiting by the foot of the bed.

"My partner. Is he going to be all right?" Kisame repeated, a little sterner this time. He fidgeted with the frayed edges of his cloak, forcing himself to remain composed.

Cameron gulped. Patience wasn't a quality she assigned to them either.

"I don't know yet." she finally found her voice. "I won't lie to you. He almost died in there."

"There's a good chance this is only a symptom of another more serious condition." Chase added, sounding more sure of himself as he went along. "We need to find the underlying cause before he suffers another attack. His lungs are badly damaged. Without treatment, he won't be able to survive the next one."

"Is there anything I can do?"

Cameron blinked. Again, the question surprised her.

"Yes…" she hesitantly decided. "If we find out more about what happened, maybe get a detailed medical history…"

Kisame nodded slowly. He didn't exactly trust the doctors, but trust could be forced when his partner's life was at stake.

"I'll tell you what I can."

"Good." Chase added. He readied a syringe and drew another sample of blood. Cameron, meanwhile, turned to the larger Akatsuki. He easily dwarfed her, even while he was sitting down, but she didn't flinch.

"Your partner… Has he complained of any symptoms recently?"

"Complained? No." Kisame laughed nervously to himself. "Itachi never complains about anything. Even when he should."

"Has he mentioned feeling sick?"

The laughing stopped with a grunt, and Kisame glanced toward the bed.

"No." he sighed. "Well, he thinks I don't know, but I've heard him coughing all throughout watch duty. It was only once and a while at first. But it happens more and more often now."

"Has he coughed up blood before?" Cameron asked again.

"If he has, and I wouldn't put it past him, he's hidden it well." Kisame replied. "But he does get worn out pretty quickly. He doesn't have much stamina anymore. I don't know whether it's because he's in some kind of pain or just plain exhausted, but it takes him longer and longer to recover after a mission."

"How long has that been going on?"

"We became partners a little over four years ago." Kisame explained. The doctors were surprised how easily the answers came, but didn't dare question it. "He's always been quiet, reserved… Don't get me wrong, he's a skilled fighter. But he's primarily a genjutsu guy. He can defeat just about anyone without ever lifting a finger, so I guess I just didn't notice it at first. But over the past year or so, we've had to cut several jobs short and finish the rest off quickly."

Chase and Cameron also decided it was in their best interest not to ask what kind of jobs he was referring to.

"Have you noticed any other symptoms?"

Kisame tensed as he opened his mouth and then closed it again. He glanced between his feet, as though he wanted to add something, but couldn't bring himself to do it.

"It's probably not related…"

"What?"

"No… It can't be related."

"Let House be the judge of that."

"If you hold back now," Cameron pressed. "We'll be diagnosing him in autopsy."

Kisame glanced between them and at Itachi again. The mechanical rush of the ventilator punctuated each moment of heavy silence, a continuous reminder of how little time Itachi might have left.

"All right…" he finally gave in. "It's his eyes."

Cameron tilted her head curiously.

"What about his eyes?"

"He acts like it's completely normal. But with each fight, it's obvious his vision is getting worse." Kisame explained. "And right before this happened… well, you might say he had been straining them pretty badly."

Chase took a closer look.

"His eyelids do look a bit swollen." He mumbled as he pulled one back.

"You're right…" Cameron slid a small flashlight out of her vest pouch and turned it on. She pulled Itachi's right eye open. "The scleral and episcleral tissues are definitely inflamed. It looks like there's inflammation behind the eye too."

Cameron bit her lip. That kind of inflammation was almost always associated with another, far more serious, systemic disease. And even if, by sheer luck, it wasn't, if left untreated, the result would always be blindness.

"Combined with the alveolar hemorrhage, we might be looking at…"

As the light moved across his iris, they both jumped.

"Oh god…"

"What?" Kisame jumped as well.

"No way…"

"Is that… does that mean something?"

"I have no idea…" Cameron managed to reply. Chase, though, could hardly muster such a calm response.

"We have to tell House. Right now."


	10. Provoking a Reaction

"The patient is ready." Foreman broke the silence again.

"Finally!" House exclaimed, as he adjusted his equipment. He started up the recording program and the stimuli presentation program while Foreman pulled up a chair beside him. "If I knew you were going to take that long, I would have brought that new Icha Icha novel. Is it just me, or does the girl on the front bear a striking resemblance to Lisa Cuddy?"

"Don't let me spoil it for you, but they break up in chapter five."

"Oh good." House smirked. "That means there'll be make-up sex in chapter six."

He turned his attention to the screen, scrutinizing the jagged lines being written across it. They both thought it would take at least an hour to get a clear picture of what was happening inside the boy's brain. Within moments, though, Foreman was stunned. And House was literally on the edge of his seat.

"Well, I'll be damned…" House muttered as he scratched his chin.

Sasuke's body was unresponsive. Foreman's theories were plausible. House expected to find focal abnormalities amidst slow, unilateral brain wave activity. He expected to see an abundance of delta waves. There was even a slight chance they'd find no brain activity at all. But the child's mind wasn't slowing. Instead, it was almost completely active.

"That's… unusual." Foreman finally managed to agree with House. He struggled to make sense of the readings.

"What is it?" Gai snapped to attention somewhere behind them, but neither Foreman nor House acknowledged him directly.

"It is possible to see alpha frequencies after a midbrain or thalamic lesion." Foreman insisted, pointing to areas predominantly showing continuous readings of 8-9 hertz.

"Not when brainstem activity is still intact." House countered immediately, pointing at the monitor. "And it's not uniform."

It was unlike any coma they'd ever seen before.

"Foreman." He pulled a kunai out of his holster. "Time to make this more interesting…. We need a stimulus. See if you can provoke some kind reaction."

Before he could take the weapon, though, the door slid open again. Chase skidded to a stop in front of the special jonin, with Cameron following right behind him.

"We've got a problem."

"Since you're not covered in blood this time, it can't be that big of a problem." House shrugged.

"Gai, the Uchiha you were talking about earlier…" Chase spat. "The one Sasuke fought, the one that murdered his clan… What was his name?"

"His name?" Gai stuttered, suddenly echoing the same concern he saw in the doctors' faces, "His name was Itachi."

"House, your patient's name is Itachi."

"An interesting coincidence..." House continued to ignore them in favor of studying the electroencephalogram. "But not nearly as interesting as this. So unless you want to start shouting out what causes an alpha coma with such strong vital signs…"

"It's not a coincidence!"

"He has sharingan." Cameron added, almost under her breath. House visibly groaned. "His eyes were inflamed. When I started to examine them, they accidentally activated."

"He's the one that put him in the coma!" Chase shouted, pointing wildly at Sasuke. "The rogue shinobi you hauled back, the one we've been trying to save… It's Itachi Uchiha!"

"Here?" Gai burst from his seat and into a ready fighting stance. "Itachi Uchiha is in this hospital?"

"Gods, what part of 'our little secret' do you morons not understand?"

"The only good thing is that he's not in any position where he could actually pose a threat."

"Don't be so sure about that." Gai sneered. "Itachi is not someone you should risk underestimating."

"He's on life support." Cameron argued.

"He's still dangerous!"

Chakra swelled within the room, in more places than one. House raised his cane over his head, striking down hard on a nearby metal table. It was more than enough to get everyone's attention.

"Hello! Differentials in progress! Alpha coma. Stable vital signs. Go!"

"House…"

"Holy… House, did you see that?"

"Hm?" he blinked.

"Go back!" Foreman replayed the data, pointing at the screen.

House's jaw dropped. Compared to the first set of alpha waves, these had relatively low amplitudes. And unlike the first pattern, they were fast, at least fifteen or sixteen cycles a second.

"Diffuse beta activity!" Foreman pointed. "But that's impossible. You only see that if a person's awake!"

The doctors spun around just in time to see Sasuke's eyes burst open with sharingan swirling wildly.

"He is awake!"

Sasuke shot upright with a startling scream. His hands clenched the table so tightly his knuckles turned white.

"… No… No…" Sasuke scanned the room with nervous eyes, pushing himself into the back of the bed. Sweat ran down the front of his face, loosening a few of the electrodes. Curiously, House crept closer.

"He might be awake… But something's not right about it…"

"Brother… Not… not mother… father… NO! Not… NOT AGAIN!" Sasuke's chakra burst through his terror as he snatched the kunai, blade first, right out of House's hand. He flipped it around, and sliced through the all of the wires in one swift strike.

It was as if the child could see his moves before he made them. House barely had enough time to dodge a barrage of kicks and punches as Sasuke dove off the bed. House struck with his cane, and missed just as narrowly. Unfortunately for House, the strike put him slightly off balance, and Sasuke saw his opportunity. One low kick to House's cursed leg, and the man dropped to the ground.

"House!"

"Sasuke!"

"Don't just stand there!" House spun around in shock. "Get him!"

His command, however, wasn't so easily executed. Sasuke slipped through House's cell with surprising speed and little effort. When the dust cleared, Cameron was against the wall. Foreman and Chase had mistakenly tackled each other. And Might Gai, completely dumbfounded, had a footprint on his face.

House propped himself up with his cane and looked around. Sasuke Uchiha was nowhere to be found.

"Damn it! When I asked for a stimulus, that wasn't what I had in mind!" House grunted as he tried to push himself off the floor with his cane and failed.

The other doctors, though, had more pressing things on their minds than an apology.

"How the hell did he snap out of that jutsu so fast?"

"I don't know." House sighed. "But I do know that kind of chakra surge isn't normal either."

"What?" Chase gaped.

"Don't tell me you didn't feel it. It made Cameron's little run-in with Orochimaru look like a few measly sparks. And that was before he took a blade straight to the hand without even noticing."

"You don't think…"

"Find him." House muttered angrily. "Now!"

"But if he's still being affected by the Tsukuyomi…"

"Then he's going to be that much harder to hold still!" House scoffed. "Cameron, you're with me. The rest of you, your highest priority is to find Sasuke Uchiha and sedate him before he does any more damage to himself, this hospital, or any, and I do mean _any_ of its patients. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes!" his team replied. Turning on their heels, they, along with Gai, burst through the door at full speed.

Cameron waited for the footsteps to disappear down the hallway. After a moment of silence, she approached the special jonin again.

"What are we going to do?"

"I'm not going to do anything except sit here, heal what that brat managed to do to my leg and enjoy a few more vicodin. But not likely in that order."

"Then why…"

"You, on the other hand, aren't fit to be chasing after him. The curse mark on your neck might be sealed, but it's fresh. And we don't know yet how much chakra you can actually throw at it. I won't risk it breaking when, not if, the kid pulls you into a fight. Besides, you're the only one I know I can trust."

Cameron listened intently.

"The other patient." House's voice dropped to a low whisper. "The other Uchiha… You said his eyes were inflamed?"

She nodded.

"Scleritis. Combining that with the damage in his lungs…"

"It's most likely the result of some form of small vessel vasculitis." House finished her sentence for her.

"Which means we've probably only scratched the surface on the number of affected organ systems."

"Run an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to confirm." House added. "And start him immediately on high-dose prednisolone and cyclophosphamide. At this rate, if we wait for a diagnosis, he's as good as dead."

"I'm on it." Cameron nodded.

"Good."


	11. Like Baiting a Trap

"What's taking them so long…" Kisame whispered to himself as he listened to the ventilator hum.

Itachi was slowly starting to come to. He opened his eyes a couple of times, but wasn't awake enough to focus on anything in particular. Kisame thought briefly about holding his partner's hand, but decided against it. Itachi was never one to accept pity or be coddled, and he wouldn't appreciate it now.

So, instead, he turned his focus to what was going on outside. The door was slightly ajar, and a break in the curtains gave him a partial view of the nurses' station. Despite being an intensive care unit, everything seemed remarkably calm. An orderly was mopping the floor. A male nurse stopped to chat up a chunin attendant and she elbowed him playfully in the gut. There was hardly anything worth noticing, until, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a familiar silhouette.

At first, he wasn't sure if he believed his own eyes. Might Gai, the jonin from Konohagakure they had fought just days before, was standing casually behind the nurses' station, and one of House's team, the one that was drawing Itachi's blood, was with him!

"The little bugger was small and fast." Chase sighed. "Now, are you absolutely sure he won't try to escape the hospital altogether?"

"He won't escape." Gai insisted. He cracked his knuckles and cleared his throat. "Everything Sasuke's ever wanted is right here at this hospital."

Sasuke? Kisame froze as he tried to remember where he last heard that name… It was the boy Itachi had incapacitated in Tanzaku Town… the one that looked like him… his younger brother! How he got here, and more importantly, what he was doing here – those were far more pressing concerns.

"He's been training for revenge since he was eight years old. His brother, Itachi, is a sitting duck. Trust me. He'll use that to his advantage." Gai continued. "And we get to use it to our advantage as well."

"Double-crossing bastards…" Kisame growled, as he slid closer to the crack in the door. If it was another fight the jonin was after, he would be more than happy to oblige. It might even be enough to dampen the disappointment he felt when Itachi ordered a retreat in the midst of their last victory.

He glanced over at the medical shinobi, scoffing under his breath as he quickly sized him up too. Compared to Gai, Dr. Chase was so tightly wound, he would hardly be worth toying with. It was almost comical the way he jerked to attention the minute one of the doors to the unit opened.

Dr. Cameron stopped dead in her tracks.

"Sorry." Chase scratched his head. "Thought you might have been someone else…"

"Right…" She was visibly shocked by her teammate's sudden fighting stance, and eyed him warily before moving closer. "What are you guys doing here? Aren't you supposed to be looking for Sasuke?"

"Why waste precious time?" Gai answered. "It's just like baiting a trap."

Cameron narrowed her eyes.

"Foreman's checking the other floors, but Gai's right." Chase insisted. "It won't be long before he comes right to us."

"You heard House's orders. Plus, if Foreman's theory is right, that Tsukuyomi technique could have set off massive hemorrhaging…" Cameron muttered. "A brainstem lesion or a fresh thrombus. Any one of those could kill him in an instant! Until we run more tests, we don't have the foggiest idea what's going on inside that body!"

There was a moment of silence between them. Chase, unable to argue with that particular assessment of events, opted instead to change the subject.

"So, why are you here?"

"I'm tending to our other patient." She replied, putting unusually heavy emphasis on almost every word in that sentence. "House instructed me to begin aggressive immunosuppressive treatment for systemic vasculitis. As quickly as possible."

"Do you have the lab results back?"

"Sed-rate and C-reactive protein levels were elevated. Combined with the steady fever, it just confirms the widespread inflammatory processes."

"Renal involvement?" Chase pondered aloud.

"The urinalysis did pick up microscopic levels of blood and protein. Not enough to cause any outward symptoms yet, but it's probably only a matter of time before his kidneys fail."

Cameron had already started toward the room when Gai put a hand on her shoulder.

"What would happen if you chose to forgo treatment?" Gai asked.

Cameron just blinked, shaking her head as though it were obvious.

"… He'd die."

"How long…" Gai stuttered a little. "How long do you think he has?"

"I don't know for sure." Cameron answered honestly. "Days, weeks… But after that kind of alveolar hemorrhage, he might not even make it through tonight."

Kisame's hand rattled the door handle.

"It's probably not my place to tell you how to do your job, but as a jonin of Konohagakure, I would highly suggest…"

"That you mind your own fucking business!" Kisame roared as the door slammed against the wall and back again. "I knew I should have never let my guard down! If you even think you can take down the likes of Itachi, try getting through me first!"


	12. Showdown

Nurses scrambled out doors, behind desks and out of harm's way as the enraged S-class criminal stormed into the hall. Several chunin stepped forward, but Cameron did her best to hold them back. Although it came as quite a surprise at the time, she had seen the man be calm and reasonable when his partner's life was at stake. There had to be a way to convince him to stand down. A fight in the intensive care unit could easily turn into a disaster. Too many lives were on the line, and it was far too easy for someone to get caught in the crossfire.

Unfortunately, Gai's bullish words and casual attitude only infuriated Kisame more.

"I should have known you wouldn't be far behind…" Gai scoffed. "You Akatsuki really are like a packaged set."

"The only reason you're still breathing is because Itachi told me to spare you." he growled. "The only good thing about that tube down his throat is that he won't be able to do it again."

"As if you could."

"No!" Cameron tried to intervene, but it was useless. The goading stopped as quickly as it began. Kisame drew his sword and Gai answered by dashing inside of the weapon's reach. Kisame was fast, but thanks to his size, Gai was faster. A flying side kick struck the Akatsuki in the stomach before sameheda even made it around his head. He slid back against the tile, but rolled onto his feet about an inch from the wall.

Gai stood his ground.

"If you want to try that again, I'll gladly keep putting you back in your place."

Kisame was far from deterred. Instead, he tossed the sword into the air, slamming his hands together.

"Water Style! Exploding Water Shock Wave!" He opened his mouth, and a tidal surge burst out of his body.

"What the…" Chase stammered as he leapt onto the nearby nurses' station desk. Cameron landed beside him a moment later.

"Seal the doors to the patient rooms!" she shouted. "Before the water can short out the life support systems!"

Two of the attendants countered quickly with an earth style wall. The chakra-coated slabs barely stopped the wave as it flooded the entire floor.

"You have to stop this!" Cameron shouted. "Right now! You're putting a lot of innocent patients in a lot of danger!"

"Doctor, I don't think that's up to me." Gai answered, finding temporary land on a passing medicine cart. Doctors and nurses continued to scatter, bracing themselves on rocks and counter-tops.

Kisame burst through the water, twirling Samehada over his head. As his anger boiled, his chakra rippled, creating wave after pounding wave. As soon as he saw Gai's weight shift, Kisame made his move. He slid over the water, literally running on top of the waves until he lunged at his opponent.

Gai leaped over the sword, holding onto the ceiling as Kisame passed beneath him. When he came around again, Gai spun into the attack with a hooking kick. His foot made contact with water, but nothing else, and Kisame laughed.

They traded blows back and forth unsuccessfully, and after a few agonizing minutes, Kisame started to slow down.

Seizing his opportunity, Gai leapt forward with another dynamic flying side kick. This time, however, Kisame had anticipated the attack. He thrust his sword between them, and Gai bounced off the bandaged blade.

Pushing off from the wall, he came in for another kick.

Kisame just grinned, raising Samehada to block. Sharp spikes broke through the bandages and Gai made contact with a lot more than he bargained for. Kisame swung the massive blade, sending the other ninja flying through the main doors just as the hospital's chief of staff was forcing her way in.

"What the hell is going…"

Gai collided with Jonin Cuddy, sending them both spiraling backwards in a tidal wave.

At the same time, a series of alarms suddenly went off in Itachi's room.

Chase and Cameron both gulped. He was suddenly trapped in the possibility that an enraged Cuddy was more ferocious than one of the mythical taled beasts. She, on the other hand, didn't have time to worry about being on the receiving end of Cuddy's wrath.

"Call off the jutsu!" she shouted at the Akatsuki. "You have to let us through!"

"After what you pulled, are you mad?" Kisame resumed his fighting stance, balancing his sword on his shoulders. "You and the Konohagakure vermin are all the same!"

"He's flat-lined!" she screamed, leaping into the water. Even with the door open, it still hadn't receded past her thighs. "If I can't get his heart beating again in the next thirty seconds, it's all over!"

"It seems like he was able to stop you after all." Gai goaded as he waded back inside. Chase wasn't sure who growled louder – Cuddy or Kisame.

"Release the jutsu! He's dead if I don't get in there right now!"

Kisame's eyes never left his opponent as he slammed his sword into the floor. The water, as well as the stones protecting the doors, either shattered or receded.

"We'll finish this later."

Cameron stumbled through the disappearing waves and into the room.

"Chase! Snap out of it! Get a crash cart and…"

Suddenly, she stopped.

The room was completely empty. The monitors read flat-line because Itachi had disappeared. He literally pulled his own plug.

"Where… where is he?" Cameron blinked, turning immediately to Kisame. "Where _is_ he?"

Now it was Kisame's turn to blink.

"I have no idea."


	13. Regroup

The team regrouped in a very furious Jonin Cuddy's office. Kisame and Gai were with them, if for no other reason, keeping the peace through mandatory supervision. Dr. Foreman took the time to heal the puncture wounds on Gai's right leg. Dr. Cameron and Dr. Chase took the difficult job of keeping the angry Akatsuki far away from Gai. And House took the liberty of stretching out on the couch, completely ignoring Cuddy's tirade about his usual reckless and irresponsible behavior.

"And House… Akatsuki? You brought Akatsuki into my hospital without even notifying me? You have absolutely no regard for…"

"That surprises you?" he finally replied. His casual control of the subject at least made Kisame feel a little more at ease.

"House…"

"One of them was dying."

"One of them is now missing." Cameron inserted.

"Which is pretty much the same thing as dying." House finished. "And speaking of dying, did any of you manage to find the other one that's missing? Because if a one-legged cripple-nin manages to somehow beat you to it…"

"No." Foreman interrupted quickly. "I got through half the floors, but no one had even seen him."

"He never made it to the ICU either."

"Which means he must have stopped somewhere in between."

"With no one seeing him?"

None of that, however, wasn't enough to distract Cuddy.

"House, as administrator of this hospital, I should have you and your entire team handed over to the authorities." She stammered. "Harboring fugitives, aiding rogue shinobi, terrorizing patients…"

Kisame's weight shifted and his chakra surged. Cameron and Chase braced themselves, but before the criminal could make a move, House was already on his feet. He limped toward Cuddy, staring her down.

"But you won't." he insisted, half-daring her to prove him wrong.

Cuddy clenched her fists and stared back up at House. Precious seconds ticked by as they fought each other with unsaid words - Because I need you. Because you know you need me. Because you're a traitor. Because you have secrets too. Because deep down, the line between good and evil is as hazy as the line between life and death. Because no matter much you pride yourself on being an honest, honorable shinobi, at the end of the day, pain is still pain.

It was like a genjutsu.

"Find them both." She sighed, burying her head in her hands and turning her back on the consequences of House's actions, just as House knew she would. "And just… just finish what you started before I change my mind."

Furniture creaked as the doctors stood, and started making their way to the door. Their leader, though, was lost in thought.

"That's it…" House mused to himself. "Yes, that fits…"

Chase paused.

"…What's it?"

"You know where to find them?" Foreman added.

House cleared his own path as he walked between them, out the door and down the hall. His team followed quickly on his heels, dragging the other two shinobi with them. The entire group boarded the elevator, and House hit the eighth floor button with his cane.

The others shared a confused glance. Why would Sasuke, or Itachi for that matter, make their way to Oncology?

"House, where are you going?" Foreman finally asked directly.

"Lounge." He answered, as if it were completely obvious. "Wilson has a secret stash of dango that he doesn't know I already know about."

"House, there are two critically ill patients somewhere in this hospital that are probably planning on killing each other. They're probably going to end up killing themselves in the process, unless we find them first!" Foreman insisted. "And you're getting a snack?"

"You can't be serious…" Chase muttered.

"I'm seriously hungry. Anybody else want some? Well, except for the pair of idiots who made a mess of the ICU. Cuddy would have my head if I rewarded you for that kind of thing. Might think I was encouraging it."

The chime of the elevator was the only thing that interrupted the stunned silence.

"Suit yourself." He shrugged. "More for me."


	14. Right Where You Least Expect it

The elevator doors opened. As House got off, the others would have been perfectly content to leave him to his own devices. Unfortunately, a sudden cry from around the corner changed their minds.

"Tell me where he is! I know he's nearby!"

Foreman stopped the door with his hand.

"That's Sasuke's voice!" Gai exclaimed as another's echoed in the distance.

"Look, kid… I don't know what you want or who you're after, but they're not here."

"And Wilson…" Chase added. He glanced at House, who was walking quite contently in the other direction. "Is he really just going to ignore…"

"Come on…" Cameron whispered, and the others quickly followed.

The oncology wing looked like a war zone. Papers and medical supplies were scattered over the floor like forgotten casualties. Doors to most of the patient rooms had been kicked in and broken down. And standing in the midst of the destruction was one of their missing patients.

"He… he couldn't have escaped that far! You're hiding him! I KNOW IT!"

Despite being as disheveled as his outbursts, Sasuke was clearly a force to be reckoned with. He had enough skill to make it this far without being spotted, much less caught. He had the coordination and the resourcefulness to turn a roll of bandages into a surprisingly successful makeshift kunai holster. On top of that, he had the gall to threaten people twice his size.

He'd torn most of his hospital gown apart in whatever he did to make it this far, and although he'd received several scrapes and bruises in the process, he probably hadn't even noticed. A few severed EEG wires were still attached to his scalp, but most were long gone. What was most striking, though, was the strange pattern of black flames that had since spread over half his body.

Even Gai, who had no medical training, could tell something was terribly wrong.

"No. That's impossible…" he exclaimed inside a hushed gasp.

"What?"

"Those markings. Kakashi told me about this…" Gai stuttered. "But his seal…"

"Be sure to fill us in." Foreman whispered as he intentionally caught Wilson's eye. "After we get our patient back."

He nodded in return.

Wilson glanced up and Foreman motioned for him to keep talking. He and Chase were already sliding around the debris, inching closer on each side. Meanwhile, Gai pulled a handful of caltrops out of his waist pouch, preparing to scatter them at Sasuke's feet to slow him down.

"I'm not hiding anyone…" Wilson answered as calmly as he could, doing his best to diffuse the child's anger and keep him distracted. "But I do need to get you back to you room… Do you remember what floor you were on? Your parents are probably worried sick about you."

As soon as he finished his sentence, he realized that he'd clearly chosen the wrong tactic.

"They're DEAD!" Sasuke screamed. "Itachi killed them! He killed them ALL!"

Sweat ran down his back as his body shook with rage. He dropped to the ground, slamming his fist through a discarded ceramic mask. It shattered instantly.

"Tell me where he is!" Sasuke wailed, grabbing two fistfuls of shards. "I'm going to SLAUGHTER him! And if you get in my way…"

"I think he went back to your room." Wilson replied as calmly as he could. He didn't know for sure who Itachi was, but he had the sinking feeling it was probably the Akatsuki they brought back. He nodded to the others as he took a cautious step forward. "Do you remember where it is?"

Foreman and Chase leaped toward Sasuke, only to find themselves blinded by tiny pieces of china.

"Look out!"

By the time Gai threw the caltrops, the boy was already in the air. He grabbed the edges of the air vent with both hands and hoisted himself inside. A split second later, and he was as good as gone again.

"Dammit!"

"Chase! Foreman! Are you all right?" Wilson spat. He rushed beside one while Cameron hurried to the other.

"Yeah, I think so…" Chase rubbed his eyes.

"How'd he see us coming?"

"The sharingan can sense chakra. He hardly had to turn his head to know exactly where you were and exactly what you were about to do." Kisame smirked from the sidelines.

Gai narrowed his eyes and scowled.

"Working with an Uchiha, you tend to notice these things." He shrugged, pushing himself off the wall. He grinned at Gai and wrapped his fingers around his sword. "But if you can't… then you might as well just forget about…"

"Stop it." Cameron inserted.

"Stop what?" the Akatsuki answered spitefully.

"Back in your partner's room, you said you'd do whatever you had to do to help us save his life." She insisted. "That still applies now."

"In case you haven't noticed, that's the wrong Uchiha. I don't give a damn whether the brat lives or dies." Kisame scoffed. "Besides, there's only one way to fight a sharingan. And that's with another sharingan. No matter what this idiot might spout."

Gai would have parried that insult with his fist, were it not for the cane that suddenly cut between them.

"Let me guess." House declared with his mouth full. "A team of five ninja, plus one Akatsuki who probably doesn't give a damn, still can't manage to catch a critically ill twelve year old boy."

The swinging vent above them squeaked.

"That's what I thought." House licked the stick he was chewing on and flicked it haphazardly amongst the rest of the mess. The team sighed in defeat, while Wilson just stopped and stared.

"Wait… was that my dango?"


	15. Determination and Genjutsu

Meanwhile, Itachi scaled the hospital wall as best he could. Without his sharingan activated, his vision was blurry at best. His chest hurt and it felt like his lungs were on fire. But he pushed himself onward, and tried to block out the pain.

He heard the medical shinobi talking amongst themselves. Sasuke was in the hospital somewhere, on a rampage and possibly dying. Itachi couldn't fathom how his plan, or his jutsu, had gone so terribly wrong. But somehow, it had. If there was a way, any way at all, to reverse the damage, he knew he was the only one that could do it. Finding him, though… was proving to be a far greater challenge.

He climbed until he found a window he could pry open, and stumbled inside.

At the same time, special jonin Wilson was retreating into his office. His department was in shambles. House's team was on a manhunt. All he really wanted was a short reprieve from the chaos that kept finding him. Unfortunately, as soon as he closed the door, he realized that he wasn't alone.

"And here I thought I was being completely honest when I said that I wasn't hiding anyone…" Wilson muttered anxiously to himself.

Itachi flared his sharingan as he climbed back to his feet. His gait was shaky, and his entire body trembled under the thin hospital gown.

"Sasuke… was here?" he demanded, but his voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper.

"He was here, but he got away." Wilson finally answered. His right hand nervously tapped the handle of a kunai in its holster. "I think it's safe to assume you're the one he's looking for?"

If Itachi was surprised by that, Wilson couldn't tell. The man's stoic expression betrayed few emotions – and right now, the only one was pain. He leaned on an office chair as he fought to catch his breath. A series of coughs tickled the back of his throat, but he managed to push them back down.

Itachi weakly lifted his head, and met Wilson eye to eye. The special jonin froze as he found himself locked in the gaze of the sharingan.

"How … how long ago?"

"A couple of minutes. Tops." Wilson found himself answering far quicker than he would have liked.

Itachi nodded.

"And where… where is he now?"

"I don't know." The answer came just as quickly, and Wilson cupped his mouth in surprise. None of that mattered, though. He kept talking through his fingers. "He crawled through the vent. He could be anywhere in the hospital by now."

"Not… not good enough. Did he say… anything… where he might go?"

"I tried to get him to go back to his room. I even said you were there waiting for him. But I don't know if he thought I meant it or if I was just trying to distract him."

"Where… where is that room?"

"I don't know."

Itachi swayed and his eyes faded between red and black.

"What… was that?" Wilson gasped, testing the boundaries of his own voice. All day it felt like someone else, anyone else, was pulling at his strings. But he never intended for it to be so literal.

He glanced nervously back at Itachi, only to find that the red eyes had gone completely black. The man was in far more distress than before and suddenly the thought of whose side he was on fell through the cracks. House, after all, would personally make Wilson's life a living hell if he lost his patient for him - more so than usual.

"I can't believe I'm doing this…" Wilson grabbed a stethoscope off his desk and quickly put it on. "Take a few deep breaths for me."

Itachi held his tongue, but he did obey. He fought through labored breaths as Wilson listened to a series of crackles on top of a dangerously elevated heart rate.

"Fluid in the lungs, probably more blood… I need to page House…"

"No." Itachi coughed as he finally jerked his head up. Using up most the strength he managed to conserve, he caught Wilson by the collar and pulled him forward. His eyes burned as he forcefully activated his sharingan again. "I need… to find Sasuke… And you… you _will_ help me…"


	16. New Insight

The doctors regrouped again inside special jonin House's office. Losing their patient once was bad enough. Losing him a second time was almost unforgivable. What made matters worse, though, was the new insight Gai had on Sasuke's strange condition.

"You mean Sasuke was cursed by Orochimaru too?"

"That's what Kakashi said." Gai answered less than enthusiastically. "He sealed the mark himself. And came face to face with Orochimaru in the process."

Chase gulped. Foreman let out a shaky breath. Kisame glanced over at their reactions and simply snorted.

"What was Orochimaru after?" Cameraon asked.

"What do you think he was after? The same thing he's been after for years! The body of an Uchiha!" Kisame growled. "Itachi was too strong for him when he tried it the first time. I guess the brat wasn't strong enough."

Cameron unconsciously rubbed her neck. When Orochimaru was in their care, she was the first to realize that the body he inhabited wasn't his own. She paid dearly for that discovery, though. He wanted her silent, and had Jonin Cuddy not intervened, he could have silenced her permanently.

"The mark does make its victim stronger. It releases a lot of chakra." Gai continued. The doctors nodded, more familiar with that effect than they wanted to be. "But at the cost of corroding the mind. At least that's what Kakashi found out. And that's why he sealed it."

"But how'd it break?"

"Kakashi was trained in sealing jutsu by his own teacher, one of the best Konohagakure has ever known." Gai replied. "I have no idea how it broke! It shouldn't have broken!"

"All seals can be broken." House interrupted. He shot a glance at Cameron as he pulled a rubber glove out of his vest pocket. He snapped it a couple of times, and then blew it up like a balloon. "The only question, then… is what made it break?"

He tossed his metaphor in the air and whipped a kunai out of his leg holster. The blade narrowly missed Chase's head as he dove under it, falling out of his chair. Meanwhile, the balloon landed safely in Cameron's lap.

"I never said I made it break." House shrugged, and leaned back in the chair again.

"But he was in a coma at the time!" Foreman inserted. "How could he have possibly channeled enough chakra through the seal to break it?"

"And if he did, why isn't he crippled by the pain?" Cameron added, speaking directly from personal experience. "He should be in agony!"

House leaned forward, scratching his chin.

"You're right." He mumbled. "Something else must have weakened the seal first… And something else might still be still affecting it now…"

All the doctors started talking at once.

"We gave him glucose, thiamine and naloxone when he was admitted. Could one of those have caused a reaction?"

"The naloxone, maybe. But glucose or thiamine? That's not possible."

"Then it must have been the jutsu he was under. The tsukuyomi." Foreman suggested.

"You mean the jutsu he might STILL be under… I mean, we don't even know…"

Suddenly, House's pager went off. Already on edge, Gai was the first to jump. The others soon followed.

"What is it?"

"It's Wilson." House announced.

"This better not be about the hidden dango stash." Foreman warned as he rolled his eyes.

"Nope." House smirked, conveniently forgetting the gravity of the situation for a moment. "Even better! One Uchiha brother down and one to go."

"Which one?"

"Not the rampaging one you're trying to coax out of a pipe."

Chase and Foreman both groaned.

"At least it means they haven't found each other yet."

Meanwhile, House turned to Cameron.

"Meet Wilson and our other patient down in operating room 1. Pump him full of prednisolone and cyclophosphamide. See if you can't induce rapid remission at the expense of short-term toxicity."

"Right." She was on her feet before House was even finished.

"And take the big guy with you." he continued, shooing Kisame with a half-hearted hand flick. "The floor could use a good mopping."

"You're going to treat him?" Chase exclaimed as soon as the Akatsuki was out of earshot. "You're seriously still going to treat him?"

House flipped out another kunai and slammed it through the glove-balloon and into the table. The sudden burst left a dead silence in its wake.

"I want the rest of you to listen to me very closely." House insisted, dropping his voice to a frightening whisper. "Right now, we need both of them alive. If Sasuke's unable to feel any of the effects of the curse mark and if he really is willing to use every ounce of chakra he has against his brother, then he's a bigger ticking time bomb than we originally thought. If he faces off with Itachi, he'll force the curse mark to advance, whether he intends to or not, and the increase in power alone is going to be more than his body can handle."

"The strain would cause massive organ failure. It would kill him." Foreman gasped. "And that's on top of whatever the Tsukuyomi jutsu did to his central nervous system."

"Now you're getting the picture."

"Then why even chance letting him get near Itachi in the first place?"

"Because." House stated plainly. "When it comes to catching missing patients, I'm willing to bet that he's better than all of _you_ put together."


	17. Manipulation

Itachi leaned back in the wheelchair, clawing at his aching chest. Breathing was getting more and more difficult. In the silent and sterile operating room, he could hear his own heart pounding. He could taste the metallic sludge rising up the back of his throat, but he forced it back down.

"Open all of the vents…" he rasped.

Special jonin Wilson nodded, letting go of the wheelchair. He was halfway up the wall when the operating room doors flew open again.

"Itachi!" Kisame hurried inside, with Dr. Cameron right on his heels.

"Wilson?" she blinked, as the special jonin pulled a kunai from its holster and pried the grate off one of the larger vents. The hunk of metal crashed loudly onto the floor below. "What are you doing?"

He didn't answer her. Instead, he slid silently along the edge of the ceiling until he was within reach of another grate.

Kisame had known Itachi long enough to be able to recognize his partner's genjutsu in action. Normally, he would have smirked at how weak the mind of a typical shinobi is or how easily they can be manipulated. But this time, he was far more concerned with something else entirely.

"You shouldn't be using your eyes like that…" he whispered softly as he approached Itachi. "Not when you should be conserving your chakra. You're sick. You're sicker than you let anyone believe..."

"Kisame, wait outside."

The larger man froze. The words were delivered with startling intensity, considering the condition of the one saying them.

"Itachi, you almost died. You're dying now!"

"Sasuke will come…" Itachi continued as though his partner hadn't said a word. "Don't let anyone interfere… and don't let him escape. That's an order."

Cameron watched as Kisame let out a long sigh, but did exactly as his partner requested without so much as a second glance.

When the last grate fell, Itachi closed his eyes. He focused his chakra inward and rolled quickly through the series of hand signs. A shadow clone appeared, but quickly dispersed into a flock of crows. The birds' sharingan, Itachi's signature calling card, glowed unnaturally through their jet-black feathers.

Wilson barely had enough time to jump down. Itachi's eyes snapped open, and the birds shot through the vents.

"He knows my crows. He will follow them…" He added weakly, turning toward the special jonin. "Your work is done."

Wilson nodded silently, and turned toward the door. He also followed Itachi's commands without question, but unlike Kisame, he didn't have a choice. As he brushed awkwardly against Cameron, she caught sight of his glossy, unfocused eyes – the result of a well-placed genjutsu.

"You… should leave too." Itachi choked on his words. "You'll be of no use…"

"No. You… you can't do this. You have to call back those crows. If you lure Sasuke here…" Her voice trailed off as Itachi coughed again.

Blood trickled out the side of his mouth. Without asking permission or forgiveness, she put her hand over his chest. Her chakra glowed as she surveyed the extent of the damage. Unfortunately, it was worse than either Wilson or House could have possibly anticipated. Itachi said nothing as he watched her breath hitch and her fingers tremble.

"You're in no condition to even try to defend yourself. Sasuke has a curse mark. The seal around it has broken and he's tapping into its power. He's going to use it to kill you."

"No. He won't…" Itachi insisted, looking Cameron directly in the eyes. "I will do it first. And your _only_ job is to make sure I don't die before I finish what I start."


	18. Coming Together

On House's orders, the other doctors, with Might Gai in tow, sprinted toward the operating rooms. Time was running out. They knew where one patient was, and if there was even the slightest chance the other one had figured it out, then they couldn't afford to waste a single moment.

Unfortunately, as they turned a sharp corner, they found themselves on top of a confused special jonin. Unable to avoid Wilson in time, the entire group tumbled to the floor in an ungraceful heap.

"Sorry about that." Gai dusted himself off and offered his hand. Wilson stared at it for a few seconds, but didn't reach out for it. It was an unusual reaction, to say the least.

"Wilson, are you all right?"

"I… don't know." Wilson replied. After another long, thoughtful pause, he finally took Gai's hand and found himself being pulled to his feet.

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"This is going to sound really crazy, but I honestly have no idea what I'm doing down here."

Foreman studied Wilson carefully.

"You're serious…"

"The last thing I remember was standing in my office, and…"

Wilson suddenly froze.

"And what?"

"House's patient. The Akatsuki…" Wilson added. Fragments of memories started coming back to him in scattered pieces. "He came in through the window. He… he was in bad shape. Very bad shape. I was checking his heart and lungs… and he just grabbed me…"

"Did he somehow knock you out?"

"I really don't remember." He exclaimed again. "I know it sounds weird, but…"

"What color were his eyes?" Gai interrupted.

Wilson didn't have to think very hard to answer that question. Perhaps it was a testament to how inhuman they seemed, but sharingan weren't exactly easy to forget.

"Red."

"If you know that much, then saw them long enough to be snared in a genjutsu."

Wilson shuddered. His head hurt.

"Do you know what he wanted? Why he went after you?"

"He was looking for…" Wilson paused as he sifted through a set of hazy memories. "He was looking for the boy you chased into the air vents... Sasuke, That was his name. I remember telling him something… He made me tell him. It was like he had control over my mind. But I don't remember what I said."

Foreman and Chase shared a very anxious glance. If Itachi was actively looking for Sasuke…

"Wilson, you have to remember."

"Do you know where Sasuke is now?" Foreman inserted.

Before he could answer, a strange sound rumbled on top of him.

"He's still in the air vents!" Foreman announced, as the rumbling passed on top of him and down the hall. "Come on!"

Chase and Gai turned to follow the noise, leaving Wilson in their dust.


	19. The Calm Before the Storm

At the same time, on the other side of the hospital, House's other patient sat up a little straighter.

"I can sense him… He's found the crows. He's coming."

Dr. Cameron, meanwhile, tended to the IV in Itachi's arm. She had already pushed both a corticosteroid and the alkylating agent, but even at the doses she administered, it could take hours before either could have a noticeable effect on his condition. With that in mind, she couldn't help but hope his senses were mistaken. There were people nearby, but Sasuke wasn't one of them. She could hear her fellow teammates running down the hallway, shouting vainly at Kisame to let them through.

Now, more than ever, she wanted to help them. She knew what was at stake, and from the urgency in their voices, she knew they had come to the same conclusion. Sasuke was on his way, and a battle between the brothers was no longer a matter of 'if.' It was a matter of 'when.' But no matter how much she tried to focus her chakra, she couldn't snap herself out of Itachi's genjutsu. She couldn't stop treating him. She couldn't even leave his side.

"You shouldn't strain yourself... like that…" a hoarse whisper broke the uncomfortable silence. At first, Cameron thought she imagined those words, but the look in her patient's eyes was unmistakable. "Just… like my… my brother… You're tinged with Orochimaru's chakra too."

Cameron blinked. She knew sharingan could assess chakra, but she didn't realize he could sense her curse mark so easily.

"It can…" Itachi tried to say something else, but a series of coughs forced his concentration to break. He slumped forward, trying to smother them with his hands, but it made little difference.

"You're the one who shouldn't be straining yourself." Cameron added as she rubbed his back in small, chakra-filled circles.

The damage was overwhelming. She could sense the blood in his lungs just as clearly as she could feel the ridges of his spine under the hospital gown. No matter how gentle she tried to be, Itachi's body was collapsing under the pressure. He was literally drowning in his own blood. She bit her lip as he sat back up. Both his hands were covered in it.

"Don't fight it." She continued. "Suppressing it will only make it worse."

Itachi's reluctant nod ended in another coughing fit. Blood splattered across his lap and onto the floor.

Cameron pushed more chakra into his back, but it was completely futile. Each cough brought up more and more blood until Itachi could barely catch his breath.

"I can't control this with chakra alone." She admitted, quickly reaching for an oxygen mask. She placed it over his nose and mouth and started the flow at one hundred percent. "And even this won't last for long… I need to intubate you, repair the damage surgically. It's your only chance."

Itachi only had enough time to take a few hesitant breaths before a wave of familiar chakra caught his attention. His hand met her's, and, with surprising strength, he pushed the mask away.

"No time…"

"But…" Cameron started to argue, but stopped immediately. Sharingan weren't needed to sense the younger Uchiha. The angry squawking of crows followed by the clamoring of hands and knees against metal were more than enough to herald his arrival. She could hear Foreman shouting and Gai screaming. Kisame shouted back, and she knew words could turn to blows at any moment.

"Go." Itachi ordered between labored breaths. He coughed again, and a small trail of blood dribbled down his chin.

Cameron found herself nodding, her body moving toward the door on its own accord. As she pushed it open, she glanced over her shoulder just long enough to see Itachi yank the IV from his arm.

"You're not going to survive this." She whispered. Whether those words were still part of the genjutsu, she'd never know.

"So be it."


	20. Sasuke's Strength

Sasuke burst through the open vent like a wild animal. He was trembling with both chakra and rage. His face was flushed and sweat was dripping off his chin. The black markings had spread even farther, leaving only a portion of his face and right hand unscathed. But Sasuke didn't seem to notice any of this. His eyes were focused on one thing and one thing only – his older brother.

Despite the illness reeking havoc inside his body, outwardly, Itachi analyzed the situation as calmly as he always did. It was a sight that only infuriated Sasuke more.

The curse mark was forcibly drawing out his chakra at an unbelievable rate, doubling, if not tripling his stamina and strength. He couldn't control it, though. He could barely direct it. His sharingan were active, but it was more like an involuntary reaction than a conscious choice. He lacked the mental concentration to perform genjutsu. Complex ninjutsu may even be out of the question. What remained was going to be nothing short of a hand-to-hand brawl, something Itachi knew he needed to avoid at all costs.

Sasuke seemed to know it too. With no introduction and absolutely no hesitation, he charged into battle.

Mania fueled his speed and his curse mark accelerated it. Itachi barely had enough time to push himself over the edge of the wheelchair before Sasuke spun and kicked it out from under him. It slammed into the wall, taking out both an instrument cart and an oxygen machine with it. It was loud, but Sasuke's scream was even louder.

Itachi marveled at the kick's power, but frowned at its technique. The spin alone bought Itachi more than enough time to react and counter. Sasuke couldn't re-balance himself before Itachi, in mid-air, seized his hospital gown. Using his brother's own momentum against him, Itachi flung Sasuke in the same direction as the chair. The boy slammed against the wall with about as much force.

Itachi, unfortunately, couldn't close the distance he created. The strain of the throw itself left him fighting for his breath. He coughed up a small mouthful of blood, thankful that his disoriented brother couldn't hear it in the midst of the crash.

"You… you murderer! You MURDERER!" Sasuke shrieked as he climbed back to his feet. A handful of instruments flew like shiruken toward Itachi, but he was able to dodge them with ease. "I'll KILL YOU with my BARE HANDS!"

Itachi swallowed the blood and ignored the outburst.

"You want to kill me, little brother?" he coughed, climbing to his feet. He steadied his stance and beckoned his opponent forward. "Let me see you try."

Sasuke lunged again. Wild chakra surged around him and Itachi took a cautious step back. Armed with scalpels for kunai, Sasuke's strikes flew furiously in all directions. Each one was stronger than the last, taking more and more effort to deflect. The best Itachi could do was land a knee strike inside a wild swing, but he already knew it was a useless attack. Caught somewhere between compounding adrenaline, natural endorphins and the after-effects of the initial Tsukuyomi, Sasuke didn't even feel it.

Itachi, however, could.

Burning lungs and an aching chest were suddenly nothing compared to the sharp pain in his throat. Itachi blinked as he stumbled back. A trembling hand made its way to his neck, leaving in its wake a deadly realization. There was a scalpel lodged in his windpipe. Sasuke's weapon had hit its target with deadly accuracy.


	21. Not Too Late

"Cameron! Cameron, are you all right?" Chase shook her gently. Her eyes were as blank as Wilson's had been, but she was quickly coming back to her senses as Itachi's jutsu faded away.

"What the hell is going on in there?"

"Sounds like fun, that's what." Kisame beamed as one loud crash followed another just like it. "Too bad I'm stuck on guard duty."

"I think she was under a genjutsu too." Gai added.

"Cameron, are you all right?" Chase repeated. This time, he got a response.

"I think so…" she blinked hesitantly as mad laughter echoed from behind the door.

Cameron gasped, spinning around. The doctors' chakra surged as they clenched their fists. But before they could even shift their weight, Kisame had his sword drawn.

"I told you already. Don't interfere." He grinned menacingly as he held it between them and the door. The blade exuded almost as much chakra as he did. "Or you're going to spend the rest of the day stitching each others arms and legs back on."

"You have to stop this!"

"Sasuke's going to die…" Chase stammered.

"Good riddance." Kisame countered with a grin.

"He's not the only one who's going to die, though. This is just like back in the ICU!" Cameron shouted up at the Akatsuki. "If you don't let at least one of us through those doors, your partner's going to die first! What's more important, his orders or his life?"

"Don't make me laugh." he smirked. The rest of the team glanced nervously between her, Kisame and the door. "Trust me, this won't take long. If there's one thing Itachi's known for, it's finishing a fight quickly."

Gai's eyes narrowed.

"Why you…"

"We obviously don't have time for this!" Foreman shouted, seizing the other ninja by the wrist before he could attack. He shot a glance at Chase and Cameron and they immediately understood. "Come on!"

Foreman led them down the hallway and into the stairwell. He didn't speak again until he was certain the Akatsuki was well out of range.

"We can get in through the observation room on the next floor. Break the glass…" he suggested. "Hopefully, we're not too late."

"Brilliant." Chase added, right on his heels.

They burst through the door, just in time to see one of the fighters collapse. Blood squirted from Itachi's wound as his head slammed against the floor. It bubbled in his mouth as he clasped a hand over his neck, struggling to breathe. Sasuke, chakra still blazing uncontrollably, stood over him, victorious.

"I knew it…" she gasped.

"This time, it's my turn to say good riddance." Gai muttered, cracking a small smile.

"Come on!" Foreman readied an elbow. "We're not too late to save Sasuke!"

"Cuddy'll throw a fit about the broken glass." The special jonin's voice shot out of nowhere.

"House?"

Caught completely by surprise, Foreman jumped, his strike sliding across the glass instead of through it.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Wondering how long it was going to take for you all to get here. What does it look like?" he smirked, popping the last of Wilson's dango into his mouth.

"But if you've been here the whole time, why haven't you done anything?"

"I did do something." House answered matter-of-factly. His cell stared at him with natural skepticism. "I got more dango."

Foreman groaned.

"All right, House. You win. You got Itachi to find Sasuke instead of us. That's what you wanted, right? So why are you letting them fight?"

"Because it's interesting."

"Interesting?" Chase exclaimed. He shook his head in disgust, grabbing a fistful of his own hair. "Sasuke's curse mark is out of control! They're both dying! And you find it interesting?"

"That's precisely why it's interesting." House replied. "Because neither of them is actually dying yet. Well, not from the battle, anyway..."


	22. The Meaning of Victory

Sasuke twitched as he bent proudly over Itachi. Chakra surged through his body. Victory coated his hands like blood, and Sasuke relished it.

"How does it feel?" he gloated, dropping forcefully to his knees. "How does it feel to DIE LIKE THEY DID! At the FEET of another Uchiha! At the hands of your OWN FLESH AND BLOOD!"

He grabbed his brother by his hospital gown, and pulled the near-lifeless body off the ground. Itachi, meanwhile, put all his remaining energy into reaching up with his hand. When he finally had Sasuke's attention, Itachi flicked his wrist. His fingers pointed across the room and the shadow clone disappeared into a flock of crows.

"You haven't avenged anyone yet, Sasuke." Itachi announced.

He hid amongst the shadows, still sitting in the wheelchair. His mangyeko sharingan were active, but he was having difficulty maintaining them. Even though he'd hardly moved, the strain of the battle was clearly taking its toll.

"And you won't. Not like this."

For the first time, Itachi forced himself to really stand up.

"You're weak." He taunted, forcefully ignoring the blood that rose in the back of his throat. "If you want to kill me, you can't keep holding back. You need to strike me with all your hatred."

Sasuke growled.

"Unless, of course, you still lack…"

"You killed them! You KILLED THEM ALL!" Sasuke screamed as he clutched his left wrist and charged forward. Sparks of electricity ran over his fingertips, growing larger and more powerful as he ran. "And now, you're gonna' PAY!"

Itachi smiled slightly as he slid back. Sasuke's hand slammed onto the floor beside his brother's feet. The sheer force of impact blew away the tile and much of the dirt beneath it, but all Itachi had to do was let his brother's own momentum carry him right into the ground. Sasuke tried to scramble to his feet, but a knee to his jaw and a kick to his stomach threw him down again.

"Sloppy…" Itachi forced himself not to gasp between his words. "And… you're still… holding back…"

Sasuke seethed and his chakra rippled over the battlefield in harsh waves. The markings on his face grew, turning the skin around his left eye completely black.

"I am not holding back!" Sasuke screamed. His hands clasped together, and a monstrous fire jutsu burst from his lips.

Itachi had predicted the attack, but not what happened next. The broken oxygen containers had saturated the air, feeding Sasuke's jutsu ten-fold. Itachi narrowly dodged the fireball, but couldn't dodge the chain reaction of explosions from the viable canisters behind him. He pushed what was left of his chakra into his mangyeko while the second burst of flames swallowed him whole.

The explosions fed on each other, destroying everything in their path. The door Kisame was guarding was blown from its hinges. Large pieces of metal flew in all directions, shattering the glass around the observation room in at least seven places at once.

The doctors shrieked, crouching under the shower of glass. Even special jonin House was caught off guard. All he could do was shield his face from the shards as they nicked his scalp and arms.

"Sasuke!" Gai was the first on his feet, but the others weren't far behind.

Sprinkler systems had activated on their own, but the makeshift battlefield was still drenched in smoke. Alarms were going off all over the floor.

"Can you see him?" Chase stammered. "I can't see anything!"

"There!" Foreman pointed.

"Oh my god…" Cameron gasped as a red haze parted the clouds of smoke.

"What the hell is _that_?"

No one moved. No one even made a sound. Slowly, the smoke started to recede. The more details House and his team could make out, the more frightening the situation became. What, at first, looked like mere chakra, was actually a giant ethereal creature, armed with a sword that stretched clear across the operating room. At the end of its blade was one of their patients.

"Sasuke!"

Gai tightened his fists and his chakra surged.

If the sword through his stomach wasn't enough to frighten House's team, the effect it had on the curse mark was. The black markings that covered Sasuke's body glowed with a vicious fire. His heart pounded erratically in his chest. His temperature was dropping so fast that water turned to ice as it struck him. His eyes twitched as though his head were about to explode.

"The curse mark! It's…"

"Forget the curse mark! He's just been impaled!"

"It's used up almost all of the chakra his body could produce on its own." House finished Cameron's sentence for him, in favor of ignoring Chase's altogether. "And he's still trying to squeeze more out of it. Not that it would matter, of course."

"Because it'll kill him!" Chase shouted, watching Sasuke's mouth tighten into a silent but agonizing scream. "House, you said it yourself! That'll kill him!"

Foreman had barely started shifting his weight when House thrust his cane between his subordinates and the broken window.

"How can you hold back…" Foreman snapped his head around. "How can you even _think_ of holding _us_ back! House, he's..."

"He's not dying!" House shouted even louder, slamming his cane against what was left of the glass and shattering it completely. "Open your eyes. The curse mark isn't spreading… Look! It's receding!"

"Receding?" Chase repeated in disbelief. He inched closer, propping his hands carefully on the ledge. Foreman and Cameron followed suit. Their jaws dropped.

It was almost impossible to believe, but House was right. The mark was certainly receding.

"That jutsu. That's impossible! It isn't a killing weapon." Cameron muttered. "It must be some kind of sealing weapon…"

"You mean he's sealing the curse mark?"

"He's doing something to it."

"He's actually trying to _save_ his brother's life!"

"But that's impossible!" Gai scoffed. "Why on earth would Itachi Uchiha…"

He didn't have time to finish his thought.

"Now that one, on the other hand," House tipped his cane nonchalantly toward Itachi. "He is dying."

Within the ribs of his Susano'o, Itachi dropped to his hands and knees. Blood streamed freely from both eyes. The pain wouldn't stop. The burning in his chest wouldn't stop. Coughing turned into violent retching, and he hacked up one mouthful of blood after another.

"House, he's almost completely out of chakra…" Cameron gulped, hardly noticing that she had accidentally gripped a piece of glass. "He can't finish it."

The jutsu faded in and out with Itachi's ragged gasps.

"Oh my god… he's going to die trying!"


	23. Or Die Trying

"You're right… He will die trying." House nodded, still staring intently at the battle scene below him. It truly was one of the most interesting things he'd come across, and that was saying quite a lot.

Itachi Uchiha, mastermind behind the massacre of his entire clan, wasn't trying to kill his younger brother. He was trying to save him. And he really was about to die trying. "Foreman. Go find Cuddy. The fact that she's not lobbing both insults and shuriken at my head right now means she's probably held up with fishface down there. I need her to do the evil sealing method, and if the kid's chakra has anything to say about it, it's going to take at least 20 mg of diazepam to sedate him."

Foreman blinked, and not just because House was ordering him to use almost four times the average adult dosage on a child.

"Wait, you want me to go to Cuddy? Last time, you…"

"Last time involved a rather hot naked female body." House stated matter-of-factly as he pushed himself off the chair. He glanced at Cameron, who, at any other time, would have probably been rolling her eyes. "This time, let's just say naked kids don't really do it for me, okay? Now move!"

As Foreman turned on his heels, House turned to Chase and Cameron.

"The rest of you, get down there. Cameron, tend to Itachi! Chase, get a crash cart! I'll take Sasuke."

"I'm coming too." Gai put a hand on House's shoulder as Cameron and Chase jumped into the fray below.

"You just make sure he doesn't get away this time." House growled as he hoisted his bad leg onto the window ledge. He watched Gai dive over the edge and just shook his head. "Damn jolly green jonin…"

House touched down, rolling over his good leg. But before he could even regain his footing, the Susano'o jutsu burst apart.

Itachi choked on what little air he had left, collapsing lifelessly onto the wet tile. With the sword no longer pinning him to the wall, Sasuke fell like dead weight into the open arms of jonin Might Gai. And with the battle officially over, the metaphorical floodgates had opened as well.

"Special! Jonin! House!" Cuddy screamed as she stormed past Kisame into what was left of the operating room. He glanced toward her, and could think of only two reasons why she wasn't immediately demanding an explanation for the destruction. The first probably involved the unconscious patients, one of which had destructive streak of his own, on top of a perilously active curse mark. The other was most likely denial.

"I've got Sasuke." Gai announced.

"Good." House answered, ignoring Cuddy's outburst completely. "The sooner we can get one of them out of the sight of the other, the better! Cameron…"

"I can't!" she shouted, tearing Itachi's gown and pressing her hands against his chest. "He's completely out of chakra!"

"You mean he even squeezed out his life force on that jutsu? That's impossible!" Chase pulled the crash cart behind him. For the first time, Kisame stood back and let the other doctor through without argument. "No one can use up all their chakra. They'd pass out long before they…"

"I've got no carotid pulse!"

Chase clamped his mouth shut and instantly pulled the defibrillator off the cart.

"Clear!"

"Shock, then start pumping chakra!" she added, grabbing a laryngoscope and tracheal tube from the cart. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gai carrying a dazed Sasuke out the door. Foreman and Cuddy were right at his heels, with House a few steps behind. He paused at the doorway.

"Get the patient into the OR as soon as possible." He grunted with his usual smirk. "One that hasn't been lit on fire, I mean."

Cameron nodded, as the electric current surged through Itachi's body. He twitched, but it was a completely involuntary response. He put his hand against Itachi's neck.

"Dammit… Still nothing."

"Keep pumping chakra! I need to intubate!"

"Hurry it up!"

Forgoing the drugs completely, Cameron lifted Itachi's head and opened his mouth. Within five seconds, the tracheal tube was down his throat, and Cameron was forcing air into his badly damaged lungs.

As soon as she was finished, Chase delivered yet another shock.

"I can't get his heart going!"

"Keep trying!"

"It's pointless! Neither of us have enough chakra to get his body going agai…" Chase suddenly found his vision completely obscured by red clouds and black fabric. Kisame snarled, his hot breath turning Chase to ice.

"I have chakra." He whispered sternly. "Plenty of chakra."

The next question didn't even need to be asked.

"Put your hands… on top of mine…" Chase stuttered. The words felt strange as they left his mouth. If the Uchiha wasn't on the floor, unconscious and dying in front of him, he would have sworn he was a victim of the man's genjutsu. "When I say so, give me all you've got."

Kisame nodded. Chase and Cameron replied in turn.

He picked up the paddles one more time.

"Clear!"


	24. Things Don't Always Go According to Plan

The quiet, sterile patient room was a far cry from the operating room-turned-battlefield. An exhausted Sasuke squirmed slightly in Gai's arms, but was far too weak to fight back. The sedative Foreman administered on the way up the stairs made certain of that. Cuddy pushed the bed against the wall to make more space for the ritual, and House took the liberty of hopping up on it.

"You never quit, do you…"

"It's just one of those qualities that makes me so endearing." House grinned, as Foreman sat down beside him.

"I still don't get it…"

"Hey, I said it before. I'll say it again. Naked kids don't do it for me. Now, if a certain mass murderer had thought to spare a few Uchiha chicks all those years ago instead…"

Cuddy rolled her eyes. Foreman just crossed his arms.

"No. I mean the fight… and the sealing jutsu… Was he really trying to seal the curse mark?"

"Seal, no…" House mused, as Cuddy cut what was left of the hospital gown off Sasuke. "It looked like he was trying to get rid of it entirely..."

Foreman's confused glance betrayed the obvious. He didn't know that was even possible. When House refused to berate that confusion in favor of staring with vague disinterest at the sealing ritual in front of him, he realized House was thinking the same thing. He didn't know it was possible either.

"…do you think he could have done it?" Foreman broke the uneasy silence. "If he hadn't run out of chakra?"

"I don't know." House eventually answered.

"Now those are three words I didn't think I'd ever hear from you." Foreman scoffed. Cuddy glanced up with a sideways glance and a satisfied smile.

"Well, you flubbed it with Sasuke." House jabbed, preferring to change the subject rather than pin himself in a corner.

"Technically, it was Chase that set him off."

"That doesn't…" House's normally loud retort fell into a soft mumble as his eyes widened. "That doesn't matter…"

"Wait, what doesn't matter?"

"You didn't flub the EEG, you flubbed the diagnosis. If the Tsukuyomi weakened the curse seal, then the damage wasn't physical at all. It was psychological… Something traumatized him to the point that he mustered up enough rage and released enough chakra to break through it on his own. Anyone could have done it. Chase just happened to be the first person to say the magic word." He glanced up at Gai. "Which means you might want to do yourself a favor, and not even start to tell the kid anything that happened today – especially about you know who."

Gai looked back toward them.

"Then the Tsukuyomi…" his mind suddenly flew back to Kakashi. Inwardly, he cursed himself for forgetting about him, even if it was only for a few hours in the heat of chaos.

"The Tsukuyomi would have probably left behind nothing more dangerous than a migraine headache caused by vasodilation in the cranial blood vessels and a really_ really _bad set of nightmares. He would have woken up on his own - with or without our help."

Gai nodded, both relieved and dumbfounded at the same time.

"So, what should I tell him when he wakes up?"

"That he picked a fight with someone better than him and lost." House scoffed. "And that things don't always go…"

His voice trailed off again. In the middle of his sentence, he hopped off the bed and started toward the door.

"… Things don't always go according to plan…"

He brushed by jonin Cuddy, and paused for a moment. Sasuke's body was limp and lifeless in her arms.

"Oh, one more thing." He added, firmly and with a complete lack of compassion. "You. Are a little brat."

"Excuse me?"

Cuddy glanced up just in time to see that the insult wasn't meant for her. House's cane slammed down on Sasuke's right wrist, shattering the bone in multiple places. House ignored Cuddy's indignant screams, Gai's threats and Foreman's angry protest. He simply twirled his cane over his hand and planted it solidly on the tile again.

"Hey, it's nothing that wasn't already broken when he got here. Consider it payback for what he did to my leg!"

House walked out the door, and limped nonchalantly through the hall. He reached the intensive care unit just in time to see a gurney roll around the corner, and with it, two of his cell.

"How soon before Mister A-cough-ski regains consciousness. I want to have a word with him."

"House, don't even think of extubating him. He isn't stable." Cameron warned, holding tightly onto the bed rail. "Right now, we're just counting ourselves lucky he survived the surgery."

"With the amount of chakra he has left, I can't believe he didn't die on the table."

"I said I wanted to have a word with him." House repeated. "Who said anything about him getting to talk back?"


	25. Answers

Several hours passed before Itachi showed any signs of wakefulness. Slowly, as the sedation began to wear off, dark eyes fluttered behind heavy lids and fingers tightened around bedsheets. House propped his feet on the bed, and stretched his arms behind his head.

"You know, dying criminals don't just get up out of bed to go after their little brothers without a good reason."

The words echoed in the quiet, sterile room, and Itachi's eyes shot open.

"Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me." House added nonchalantly. "I sent that big blue buddy of yours off on an errand. Something about turning a certain jonin's desk into beachfront property in return for the chance to see her nipples through her vest – something I'd personally love to see, but you know what they say. Business before pleasure."

Too exhausted to activate his sharingan, Itachi forced himself to squint in the doctor's general direction. House leaned forward, but it did little good.

"It was pretty obvious if you ask me. You never intended to kill the brat." House continued. "All your attacks did were systematically egg him into using up his own chakra so the chakra in the curse seal would be easier to latch onto with that strange jutsu of yours."

Itachi managed a glare, and House smirked.

"Actually, you didn't just not kill him. You nearly killed yourself to save him."

House studied Itachi's face, but it betrayed no emotions whatsoever. Sighing, he sat back against the chair, spinning his cane around in his hand.

"At first, I thought you were just acting out of guilt. Murder everyone the kid knows and loves. He's bound to come back for revenge, finish what you started. He did it in Tanzaku Town, right? Same thing, only this time, you're weak enough he might actually get somewhere with it." House added. "But if that were the case, you wouldn't have taken so many precautions. You wouldn't have accepted Cameron's aid. You wouldn't have even cared about the curse mark, on your brother or on my doctor."

This time, House's words provoked a reaction, albeit a small one. Itachi's gaze fell somewhere between the IVs in his left arm.

"You didn't just want him to kill you and avenge the death of everyone you killed. That would make him no better than you." House smirked again. "No… You actually care about what happens to the kid. You don't want him to be a murderer. You want him to be a hero – a proud, strong, righteous hero! That _is_ your plan, isn't it?"

Itachi clenched his fists.

"But he's not a hero, is he." House slid to the side of Itachi's bed, forcing himself into the patient's line of limited sight. "That's why you kept encouraging him during the fight, isn't it? It's why you knocked him out in Tanzaku Town with that Tsukuyomi jutsu. That, which does not kill you, makes you stronger? The EEG ruled out the most devastating physical effects of whatever it is you did to him, so the real damage must be psychological. Am I right?"

Itachi slowly nodded.

"Of course, how were you to know the psychological strain would be enough to break the seal that was controlling the curse mark? That was certainly unexpected, wasn't it!" House boasted. "So of course, now you have to fix that on top of the whole engineering your own death at his hands part. And well… None of that's working out quite the way you planned, is it..."

Itachi would have let out a long sigh, were it not for the forceful push of the respirator. He was far too tired to even sit up, so he resigned himself to running his fingers through the tubes pumping near-toxic doses of medicine through his failing body.

"Microscopic Polyangiitis." House threw the words, like shuriken, in his patient's face. "Your body's own antibodies are turning against your white blood cells, damaging the walls of blood vessels all over your body – in your eyes, in your kidneys, especially in your lungs. Now, given how complex your little scheme is, it's pretty obvious you're smart enough to have figured out that your prognosis isn't exactly favorable. So I won't waste time patronizing you. But if we can force the symptoms into remission, and your body responds well to treatment, you _might_ still have a couple of years left."

Itachi glared back up at House, and his expressionless expression said both everything and nothing at the same time.

"It'll give you enough time to make some new plans." House added as he stood up. "Because that brother of yours isn't going to be the one avenging you. Your own body's going to beat him to it by leaps and bounds."


	26. Unfinished Business

Two days later, special jonin House and his team found themselves on the hospital skybridge, watching one of their patients walk toward the gate.

"It looks like you were right about the Tsukuyomi." Foreman nodded pleasantly. "And it's a good thing, too."

"I spoke with Gai a few hours ago." Chase added. "Sasuke doesn't remember a thing about the actual fight with his brother. It looks like it was just part of one big nightmare to him. Something he doesn't exactly feel keen on retelling – or reliving."

"Good. That should be enough to keep that curse mark of his intact. At least for a little while." House replied. Cameron unconsciously rubbed her neck, a gesture that didn't go unnoticed by her superior. "But probably not for very long."

Foreman, Cameron and Chase all nodded reluctantly. As much as they hoped Cuddy's evil sealing method would have been unbreakable, they also witnessed, first hand, how deep Sasuke's desire for vengeance went. His anger was essentially bottomless, and when he released it, nothing, not even the most powerful sealing jutsu, would stop it. It was only a matter of time.

Time, of course, was exactly what their other patient didn't have.

House turned to Cameron.

"How about the other Uchiha? Any change?"

"We were able to wean him off the ventilator this morning." She reported. "He's still in critical condition, though."

"That means Cuddy's going to want him and his partner out of here and across the country by sunrise tomorrow." House added, not particularly in the mood for facing off with a second ANBU unit in the same week. "His kidneys should still be functioning well enough to metabolize a citrate anticoagulant. Start him on plasmapheresis to speed things up."

"Just one round?"

"It'll be better than nothing." Chase added, glancing back at House and Cameron. The former almost laughed under his breath.

"I didn't know you cared."

"Well… he did manage to save his brother's life… So I guess…"

Foreman shrugged, although he had to agree.

"It kind of makes me wonder whether that whole clan massacre story is as true as they say it is."

"Whether it is or not, don't expect him to take his secrets anywhere but his grave." House insisted, dropping the subject entirely. "Which is right where he's going unless you can get enough prednisolone and cyclophosphamide to last him the next four weeks. After that, and he's still alive, he can probably get by with methotrexate instead of cyclophosphamide."

"House, you do realize that'd make a two year supply, bare minimum..."

"And while you're at it, fill a scrip for a few months worth of vicodin too." House waved Foreman off. "Not for the patient, though. That one's for me."

Foreman rolled his eyes and shook his head in return.

"I wouldn't have guessed."

"Just get what you can." House added. His voice was soft, but serious. "It's not exactly like an Akatsuki can just step into the local village pharmacy for refills, but I'm sure you can figure something out."

He started to walk away, but Chase stopped him.

"Hang on." he inserted. "We can figure something out? What about you?"

"Me? I still have one more house call to make. Got kind of sidetracked from the last one." He smirked, as determined as ever. "Once you get me that vicodin, of course. After what the brat did to my leg, it's going to be a long, painful walk to Rice Country. Or should I say, the country formerly known as Rice Country."

As House left the Skybridge, the rest of his cell shared a series of long, nervous looks, calling his already tenuous loyalty into question once again. It was a concern, though, that they'd have to answer another time. There was still a lot to take care of before nightfall.

"… so, who's going to be the one to teach the other Akatsuki how to administer an IV?" Cameron finally broke the uneasy silence.

"Not it." Chase and Foreman both answered immediately. It was hardly a surprise, but in Cameron's mind, they were actually doing her a favor.

"Then you get to deal with the pharmacy." She smiled, heading off in the opposite direction.

The other two paused.

"Damn. We walked right into that one." Chase muttered.

"And for that, you're getting House's vicodin." Foreman countered just as quickly.

"Damn it!" Chase stomped his foot into the tile. "Why am I always stuck with falsifying records?"

Foreman let out a small chuckle.

"Just your luck, I guess."


End file.
